M9-NRLF 


B    4    1DM    OSb 


A    DEAL    IN    WHEAT 
AND  OTHER  STORIES 


"'SELL  A   THOUSAND   MAY  AT  ONE-FIFTY,'   VOCIFERATED    THE 
BEAR   BROKER" 


A  DEAL  IN  WHEAT 

AND     OTHER    STORIES     OF 
THE  NEW  AND  OLD  WEST 


BY 

FRANK    NORRIS 


Illustrated  by 
Remington,  Leyendeckcr,  Hitchcock  and  Hooper 


NEW  YORK 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 
1903 


Copyright,  1901  and  IQOZ,  by 

John  Wanamaker 
Copyright,  1902,  by 
The  Century  Company 
Copyright,  1902,  by 
P.  F.  Collier  &  Son 
Copyright,  1902,  by 
Overland  Monthly 
Copyright,  IQOJ,  by 
New  York  Herald 
Copyright,  190?,  by 
Doubleday,  Page  &  Company 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

A  Deal  in  Wheat I 

The  Wife  of  Chino 27 

A  Bargain  with  Peg-Leg 59 

The  Passing  of  Cock-Eye  Blacklock          ...  77 

A  Memorandum  of  Sudden  Death    .                            .  99 

Two  Hearts  That  Beat  as  One                                     .  129 

The  Dual  Personality  of  Slick  Dick  Nickerson         .  151 
The  Ship  That  Saw  a  Ghost    .         .         .                  .181 

The  Ghost  in  the  Crosstrees 211 

The  Riding  of  Felipe 235 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

11 '  Sell  a  Thousand  May  at  One-Fifty,'  Vociferated 

the  Bear  Broker  " Fnntwec* 

FACING  PAGE 

Caught  in  the  Circle         .  ...     120 

The  last  stand  of  three  troopers  and  a  scout  overtaken 
by  a  band  of  hostile  Indians 

'"Ere's  'Ell  to  Pay!"    ....  .176 

'  My  Curse  Is  on  Her  Who  Next  Kisses  You'"     238 


A  DEAL  IN  WHEAT 


.. 

. 


A  DEAL  IN  WHEAT 

I 

THE      BEAR — WHEAT      AT      SIXTY-TWO 

A  S  Sam  Lewiston   backed    the    horse    into 

*•  the  shafts  of  his  blackboard  and  began 
hitching  the  tugs  to  the  whiffletree,  his  wife 
came  out  from  the  kitchen  door  of  the  house 
and  drew  near,  and  stood  for  some  time 
at  the  horse's  head,  her  arms  folded  and  her 
apron  rolled  around  them.  For  a  long  moment 
neither  spoke.  They  had  talked  over  the 
situation  so  long  and  so  comprehensively  the 
night  before  that  there  seemed  to  be  nothing 
more  to  say. 

The  time  was  late  in  the  summer,  the  place 
a  ranch  in  southwestern  Kansas,  and  Lewiston 
and  his  wife  were  two  of  a  vast  population  of 
farmers,  wheat  growers,  who  at  that  moment 
were  passing  through  a  crisis — a  crisis  that  at 
any  moment  might  culminate  in  tragedy. 
Wheat  was  down  to  sixty-six. 

At  length  Emma  Lewiston  spoke. 

"Well,"  she  hazarded,  looking  vaguely  out 
3 


4  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

across  the  ranch  toward  the  horizon,  leagues 
distant;  "well,  Sam,  there's  always  that  offer 
of  brother  Joe's.  We  can  quit — and  go  to 
Chicago — if  the  worst  comes." 

"And  give  up!"  exclaimed  Lewiston,  run 
ning  the  lines  through  the  torets.  "Leave 
the  ranch  !  Give  up  !  After  all  these  years  !" 

His  wife  made  no  reply  for  the  moment. 
Lewiston  climbed  into  the  buckboard  and 
gathered  up  the  lines.  "Well,  here  goes  for 
the  last  try,  Emmie,"  he  said.  "Good-by, 
girl.  Maybe  things  will  look  better  in  town 
to-day." 

"Maybe,"  she  said  gravely.  She  kissed  her 
husband  good-by  and  stood  for  some  time 
looking  after  the  buckboard  traveling  toward 
the  town  in  a  moving  pillar  of  dust. 

"I  don't  know,"  she  murmured  at  length; 
"I  don't  know  just  how  we're  going  to  make 
out." 

When  he  reached  town,  Lewiston  tied  the 
horse  to  the  iron  railing  in  front  of  the  Odd 
Fellows'  Hall,  the  ground  floor  of  which  was 
occupied  by  the  post-office,  and  went  across 
the  street  and  up  the  stairway  of  a  building  of 
brick  and  granite — quite  the  most  pretentious 
structure  of  the  town — and  knocked  at  a  door 
upon  the  first  landing.  The  door  was  furnished 
with  a  pane  of  frosted  glass,  on  which,  in  gold 


The  Bear— Wheat  at  Sixty  -two  5 

letters,  was  inscribed,  "Bridges  &  Co.,  Grain 
Dealers." 

Bridges  himself,  a  middle-aged  man  who 
wore  a  velvet  skull-cap  and  who  was  smoking  a 
Pittsburg  stogie,  met  the  farmer  at  the  counter 
and  the  two  exchanged  perfunctory  greetings. 

"Well,"    said    Lewiston,    tentatively,    after 

awhile. 

"Well,  Lewiston,"  said  the  other,  "I  can't 
take  that  wheat  of  yours  at  any  better  than 
sixty -two." 

"Sixty-tew." 

"  It's  the  Chicago  price  that  does  it,  Lewiston. 
Truslow  is  bearing  the  stuff  for  all  he's  worth. 
It's  Truslow  and  the  bear  clique  that  stick 
the  knife  into  us.  The  price  broke  again  this 
morning.  We've  just  got  a  wire." 

"Good  heavens,"  murmured  Lewiston,  look 
ing  vaguely  from  side  to  side.     ;'That — that 
ruins  me.     I  can't  carry  my  grain  any  longer- 
what     with     storage    charges    and— and- 
Bridges,  I  don't  see    just    how  I'm  going    to 
make  out.     Sixty-two  cents  a  bushel!    Why, 
man,  what  with  this  and  with  that   it's    cost 
me   nearly    a    dollar    a    bushel    to    raise  that 
wheat,  and  now  Truslow " 

He    turned    away    abruptly    with    a    quick 
gesture  of  infinite  discouragement. 

He  went  down  the  stairs,  and  making  his 


6  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

way  to  where  his  buckboard  was  hitched,  got  in, 
and,  with  eyes  vacant,  the  reins  slipping  and 
sliding  in  his  limp,  half -open  hands,  drove 
slowly  back  to  the  ranch.  His  wife  had  seen 
him  coming,  and  met  him  as  he  drew  up  before 
the  barn. 

"Well?"  she  demanded. 

"  Emmie, "  he  said  as  he  got  out  of  the  buck- 
board,  laying  his  arm  across  her  shoulder, 
"Emmie,  I  guess  we'll  take  up  with  Joe's 
offer.  We'll  go  to  Chicago.  We're  cleaned 
out!" 


II 

THE    BULL — WHEAT    AT    A    DOLLAR-TEN 

.     .     .     and  said  Party  of  the  Second 

Part  further  covenants  and  agrees  to  merchandise 
such  wheat  in  foreign  ports,  it  being  understood 
and  agreed  between  the  Party  of  the  First  Part 
and  the  Party  of  the  Second  Part  that  the  wheat 
hereinbefore  mentioned  is  released  and  sold  to  the 
Party  of  the  Second  Part  for  export  purposes  only, 
and  not  for  consumption  or  distribution  within 
the  boundaries  of  the  United  States  of  America 
or  of  Canada. 

"Now,  Mr.  Gates,  if  you  will  sign  for  Mr. 
Truslow  I  guess  that'll  be  all,"  remarked 
Hornung  when  he  had  finished  reading. 

Hornung  affixed  his  signature  to  the  two 
documents  and  passed  them  over  to  Gates, 
who  signed  for  his  principal  and  client,  Truslow 
— or,  as  he  had  been  called  ever  since  he  had 
gone  into  the  fight  against  Hornung' s  corner— 
the  Great  Bear.  Hornung' s  secretary  was 
called  in  and  witnessed  the  signatures,  and 
Gates  thrust  the  contract  into  his  Gladstone 
bag  and  stood  up,  smoothing  his  hat. 

7 


8  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

"You  will  deliver  the  warehouse  receipts  for 
the  grain, "  began  Gates. 

"I'll  send  a  messenger  to  Truslow's  office 
before  noon,"  interrupted  Hornung.  "You 
can  pay  by  certified  check  through  the  Illinois 
Trust  people." 

When  the  other  had  taken  himself  off, 
Hornung  sat  for  some  moments  gazing  abstract 
edly  toward  his  office  windows,  thinking  over 
the  whole  matter.  He  had  just  agreed  to 
release  to  Truslow,  at  the  rate  of  one  dollar  and 
ten  cents  per  bushel,  one  hundred  thousand 
out  of  the  two  million  and  odd  bushels  of  wheat 
that  he,  Hornung,  controlled,  or  actually 
owned.  And  for  the  moment  he  was  wonder 
ing  if,  after  all,  he  had  done  wisely  in  not  goring 
the  Great  Bear  to  actual  financial  death.  He 
had  made  him  pay  one  hundred  thousand 
dollars.  Truslow  was  good  for  this  amount. 
Would  it  not  have  been  better  to  have  put  a 
prohibitive  figure  on  the  grain  and  forced  the 
Bear  into  bankruptcy?  True,  Hornung  would 
then  be  without  his  enemy's  money,  but  Trus 
low  would  have  been  eliminated  from  the  situa 
tion,  and  .that — so  Hornung  told  himself — was 
always  a  consummation  most  devoutly,  strenu 
ously  and  diligently  to  be  striven  for.  Truslow 
once  dead  was  dead,  but  the  Bear  was  never 
more  dangerous  than  when  desperate. 


The  Bull— Wheat  at  a  Dollar-ten  9 

"But  so  long  as  he  can't  get  wheat,"  mut 
tered  Hornung  at  the  end  of  his  reflections, 
"  he  can't  hurt  me.  And  he  can't  get  it.  That 
I  know." 

For  Hornung  controlled  the  situation.  So 
far  back  as  the  February  of  that  year  an 
"unknown  bull"  had  been  making  his  presence 
felt  on  the  floor  of  the  Board  of  Trade.  By 
the  middle  of  March  the  commercial  reports 
of  the  daily  press  had  begun  to  speak  of  "the 
powerful  bull  clique";  a  few  weeks  later  that 
legendary  condition  of  affairs  implied  and 
epitomized  in  the  magic  words  "  Dollar  Wheat" 
had  been  attained,  and  by  the  first  of  April, 
when  the  price  had  been  boosted  to  one  dollar 
and  ten  cents  a  bushel,  Hornung  had  disclosed 
his  hand,  and  in  place  of  mere  rumours,  the 
definite  and  authoritative  news  that  May  wheat 
had  been  cornered  in  the  Chicago  pit  went 
flashing  around  the  world  from  Liverpool  to 
Odessa  and  from  Duluth  to  Buenos  Ayres. 

It  was — so  the  veteran  operators  were 
persuaded — Truslow  himself  who  had  made 
Hornung' s  corner  possible.  The  Great  Bear 
had  for  once  over-reached  himself,  and,  believ 
ing  himself  all-powerful,  had  hammered  the 
price  just  the  fatal  fraction  too  far  down. 
Wheat  had  gone  to  sixty-two — for  the  time,  and 
under  the  circumstances,  an  abnormal  price. 


io  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

When  the  reaction  came  it  was  tremendous. 
Hornung  saw  his  chance,  seized  it,  and  in  a 
few  months  had  turned  the  tables,  had  cornered 
the  product,  and  virtually  driven  the  bear 
clique  out  of  the  pit. 

On  the  same  day  that  the  delivery  of  the 
hundred  thousand  bushels  was  made  to  Truslow, 
Hornung  met  his  broker  at  his  lunch  club. 

"Well,"  said  the  latter,  "I  see  you  let  go 
that  line  of  stuff  to  Truslow." 

Hornung  nodded ;  but  the  broker  added : 

"Remember,  I  was  against  it  from  the  very 
beginning.  I  know  we've  cleared  up  over  a 
hundred  thou'.  I  would  have  fifty  times  pre 
ferred  to  have  lost  twice  that  and  smashed 
Truslow  dead.  Bet  you  what  you  like  he  makes 
us  pay  for  it  somehow." 

"  Huh  !"  grunted  his  principal.  "  How  about 
insurance,  and  warehouse  charges,  and  carrying 
expenses  on  that  lot?  Guess  we'd  have  had 
to  pay  those,  too,  if  we'd  held  on." 

But  the  other  put  up  his  chin,  unwilling  to 
be  persuaded.  "I  won't  sleep  easy,"  he 
declared,  "till  Truslow  is  busted." 


Ill 

THE   PIT 

JUST  as  Going  mounted  the  steps  on  the 
edge  of  the  pit  the  great  gong  struck,  a  roar  of  a 
hundred  voices  developed  with  the  swiftness 
of  successive  explosions,  the  rush  of  a  hundred 
men  surging  downward  to  the  centre  of  the 
pit  rilled  the  air  with  the  stamp  and  grind  of 
feet,  a  hundred  hands  in  eager  strenuous 
gestures  tossed  upward  from  out  the  brown  of 
the  crowd,  the  official  reporter  in  his  cage  on 
the  margin  of  the  pit  leaned  far  forward  with 
straining  ear  to  catch  the  opening  bid,  and 
another  day  of  battle  was  begun. 

Since  the  sale  of  the  hundred  thousand 
bushels  of  wheat  to  Truslow  the  "Hornung 
crowd"  had  steadily  shouldered  the  price  higher 
until  on  this  particular  morning  it  stood  at 
one  dollar  and  a  half.  That  was  Hornung's 
price.  No  one  else  had  any  grain  to  sell. 

But  not  ten  minutes  after  the  opening, 
Going  was  surprised  out  of  all  countenance  to 
hear  shouted  from  the  other  side  of  the  pit 
these  words: 

ii 


12  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

"Sell  May  at  one-fifty." 

Going  was  for  the  moment  touching  elbows 
with  Kimbark  on  one  side  and  with  Merriam 
on  the  other,  all  three  belonging  to  the  "Hor- 
nung  crowd."  Their  answering  challenge  of 
"Sold"  was  as  the  voice  of  one  man.  They 
did  not  pause  to  reflect  upon  the  strangeness 
of  the  circumstance.  (That  was  for  afterward.) 
Their  response  to  the  offer  was  as  unconscious 
as  reflex  action  and  almost  as  rapid,  and  before 
the  pit  was  well  aware  of  what  had  happened 
the  transaction  of  one  thousand  bushels  was 
down  upon  Going's  trading-card  and  fifteen 
hundred  dollars  had  changed  hands.  But  here 
was  a  marvel — the  whole  available  supply  of 
wheat  cornered,  Hornung  master  of  the  situa 
tion,  invincible,  unassailable ;  yet  behold  a  man 
willing  to  sell,  a  Bear  bold  enough  to  raise  his 
head. 

"That  was  Kennedy,  wasn't  it,  who  made 
that  offer?"  asked  Kimbark,  as  Going  noted 
down  the  trade — "Kennedy,  that  new  man?" 

"Yes;  who  do  you  suppose  he's  selling  for; 
who's  willing  to  go  short  at  this  stage  of  the 
game?" 

"Maybe  he  ain't  short." 

"Short!  Great  heavens,  man;  where' d  he 
get  the  stuff?" 

"Blamed  if  I  know.     We  can  account  for 


The  Pit  13 

every  handful  of  May.  Steady !  Oh,  there 
he  goes  again." 

"Sell  a  thousand  May  at  one-fifty,"  vocif 
erated  the  bear-broker,  throwing  out  his  hand, 
one  finger  raised  to  indicate  the  number  of 
"contracts"  offered.  This  time  it  was  evident 
that  he  was  attacking  the  Hornung  crowd 
deliberately,  for,  ignoring  the  jam  of  traders 
that  swept  toward  him,  he  looked  across  the 
pit  to  where  Going  and  Kimbark  were  shouting 
' '  Sold  !  Sold  ! ' '  and  nodded  his  head. 

A  second  time  Going  made  memoranda  of 
the  trade,  and  either  the  Hornung  holdings 
were  increased  by  two  thousand  bushels  of  May 
wheat  or  the  Hornung  bank  account  swelled 
by  at  least  three  thousand  dollars  of  some 
unknown  short's  money. 

Of  late — so  suie  was  the  bull  crowd  of  its 
position — no  one  had  even  thought  of  glancing 
at  the  inspection  sheet  on  the  bulletin  board. 
But  now  one  of  Going's  messengers  hurried  up 
to  him  with  the  announcement  that  this  sheet 
showed  receipts  at  Chicago  for  that  morning  of 
twenty-five  thousand  bushels,  and  not  credited 
to  Hornung.  Some  one  had  got  hold  of  a  line 
of  wheat  overlooked  by  the  "clique"  and  was 
dumping  it  upon  them. 

"Wire  the  Chief,"  said  Going  over  his 
shoulder  to  Merriam.  This  one  struggled  out 


14  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

of    the    crowd,    and    on    a    telegraph    blank 
scribbled : 

"Strong  bear  movement — New  man — Kennedy — Sell 
ing  in  lots  of  five  contracts — Chicago  receipts  twenty-five 
thousand." 

The  message  was  despatched,  and  in  a 
few  moments  the  answer  came  back,  laconic, 
of  military  terseness: 

"Support  the  market." 

And  Going  obeyed,  Merriam  and  Kimbark 
following,  the  new  broker  fairly  throwing  the 
wheat  at  them  in  thousand-bushel  lots. 

"Sell  May  at  'fifty;  sell  May;  sell  May." 
A  moment's  indecision,  an  instant's  hesitation, 
the  first  faint  suggestion  of  weakness,  and  the 
market  would  have  broken  under  them.  But 
for  the  better  part  of  four  hours  they  stood 
their  ground,  taking  all  that  was  offered,  in 
constant  communication  with  the  Chief,  and 
from  time  to  time  stimulated  and  steadied  by 
his  brief,  unvarying  command: 

"Support  the  market." 

At  the  close  of  the  session  they  had  bought 
in  the  twenty-five  thousand  bushels  of  May. 
Hornung's  position  was  as  stable  as  a  rock, 
and  the  price  closed  even  with  the  opening 
figure — one  dollar  and  a  half. 

But  the  morning's  work  was  the  talk  of  all 
La  Salle  Street.  Who  was  back  of  the  raid? 


The  Pit  15 

What  was  the  meaning  of  this  unexpected 
selling?  For  weeks  the  pit  trading  had  been 
merely  nominal.  Truslow,  the  Great  Bear, 
from  whom  the  most  serious  attack  might  have 
been  expected,  had  gone  to  his  country  seat 
at  Geneva  Lake,  in  Wisconsin,  declaring  him 
self  to  be  out  of  the  market  entirely.  He  went 
bass-fishing  every  day. 


IV 

. 
THE  BELT  LINE 

ON  a  certain  day  toward  the  middle  of  the 
month,  at  a  time  when  the  mysterious  Bear 
had  unloaded  some  eighty  thousand  bushels 
upon  Hornung,  a  conference  was  held  in  the 
library  of  Hornung' s  home.  His  broker  at 
tended  it,  and  also  a  clean-faced,  bright-eyed 
individual  whose  name  of  Cyrus  Ryder  might 
have  been  found  upon  the  pay-roll  of  a  rather 
well-known  detective  agency.  For  upward 
of  half  an  hour  after  the  conference  began  the 
detective  spoke,  the  other  two  listening  atten 
tively,  gravely. 

4 'Then,  last  of  all,"  concluded  Ryder,  ''I 
made  out  I  was  a  hobo,  and  began  stealing  rides 
on  the  Belt  Line  Railroad.  Know  the  road? 
It  just  circles  Chicago.  Truslow  owns  it. 
Yes?  Well,  then  I  began  to  catch  on.  I 
noticed  that  cars  of  certain  numbers — thirty- 
one  nought  thirty -four,  thirty -two  one  ninety- 
well,  the  numbers  don't  matter,  but  anyhow, 
these  cars  were  always  switched  onto  the 
sidings  by  Mr.  Truslow' s  main  elevator  D  soon 

17 


1 8  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

as  they  came  in.  The  wheat  was  shunted  in, 
and  they  were  pulled  out  again.  Well,  I 
spotted  one  car  and  stole  a  ride  on  her.  Say, 
look  here,  that  car  went  right  around  the  city  on 
the  Belt,  and  came  back  to  D  again,  and  the  same 
wheat  in  her  all  the  time.  The  grain  was  re- 
inspected — it  was  raw,  I  tell  you — and  the 
warehouse  receipts  made  out  just  as  though 
the  stuff  had  come  in  from  Kansas  or  Iowa. " 

"The  same  wheat  all  the  time  !"  interrupted 
Hornung. 

"The  same  wheat — your  wheat,  that  you 
sold  to  Truslow." 

"Great  snakes!"  ejaculated  Hormmg's 
broker.  "  Truslow  never  took  it  abroad  at  all." 

"Took  it  abroad!  Say,  he's  just  been  run 
ning  it  around  Chicago,  like  the  supers  in 
'Shenandoah,'  round  an'  round,  so  you'd 
think  it  was  a  new  lot,  an'  selling  it  back  to 
you  again." 

"No  wonder  we  couldn't  account  for  so 
much  wheat." 

"  Bought  it  from  us  at  one-ten,  and  made  us 
buy  it  back — our  own  wheat — at  one-fifty." 

Hornung  and  his  broker  looked  at  each  other 
in  silence  for  a  moment.  Then  all  at  once 
Hornung  struck  the  arm  of  his  chair  with  his 
fist  and  exploded  in  a  roar  of  laughter.  The 


The  Belt  Line  19 

broker  stared  for  one  bewildered  moment, 
then  followed  his  example. 

"Sold!  Sold!"  shouted  Hornung  almost 
gleefully.  "Upon  my  soul  it's  as  good  as  a 

Gilbert  and  Sullivan  show.     And  we Oh, 

Lord !  Billy,  shake  on  it,  and  hats  off  to 
my  distinguished  friend,  Truslow.  He'll  be 
President  some  day.  Hey  !  What  ?  Prosecute 
him?  Not  I." 

"  He's  done  us  out  of  a  neat  hatful  of  dollars 
for  all  that,"  observed  the  broker,  suddenly 
grave. 

11  Billy,  it's  worth  the  price. " 
"We've  got  to  make  it  up  somehow." 
"Well,   tell  you  what.     We  were  going  to 
boost  the  price  to  one  seventy-five  next  week, 
and  make  that  our  settlement  figure." 
"Can't  do  it  now.     Can't  afford  it." 
"No.     Here;  we'll  let  out  a  big  link;  we'll 
put  wheat  at  two  dollars,  and  let  it  go  at  that. " 
"  Two  it  is,  then, "  said  the  broker. 


THE    BREAD    LINE 

THE  street  was  very  dark  and  absolutely 
deserted.  It  was  a  district  on  the  ' '  South  Side, ' ' 
not  far  from  the  Chicago  River,  given  up 
largely  to  wholesale  stores,  and  after  nightfall 
was  empty  of  all  life.  The  echoes  slept  but 
lightly  hereabouts,  and  the  slightest  footfall, 
the  faintest  noise,  woke  them  upon  the  instant 
and  sent  them  clamouring  up  and  down  the 
length  of  the  pavement  between  the  iron  shut 
tered  fronts.  The  only  light  visible  came  from 
the  side  door  of  a  certain  " Vienna"  bakery, 
where  at  one  o'clock  in  the  morning  loaves  of 
bread  were  given  away  to  any  who  should  ask. 
Every  evening  about  nine  o'clock  the  outcasts 
began  to  gather  about  the  side  door.  The 
stragglers  came  in  rapidly,  and  the  line — the 
"breadline,"  as  it  was  called — began  to  form. 
By  midnight  it  was  usually  some  hundred  yards 
in  length,  stretching  almost  the  entire  length 
of  the  block. 

Toward  ten  in  the  evening,  his  coat  collar 
turned  up  against  the  fine  drizzle  that  pervaded 

21 


22  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

the  air,  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  his  elbows 
gripping  his  sides,  Sam  Lewiston  came  up  and 
silently  took  his  place  at  the  end  of  the  line. 

Unable  to  conduct  his  farm  upon  a  paying 
basis  at  the  time  when  Truslow,  the  ''Great 
Bear,"  had  sent  the  price  of  grain  down  to 
sixty-two  cents  a  bushel,  Lewiston  had  turned 
over  his  entire  property  to  his  creditors,  and, 
leaving  Kansas  for  good,  had  abandoned  farm 
ing,  and  had  left  his  wife  at  her  sister's  boarding- 
house  in  Topeka  with  the  understanding  that 
she  was  to  join  him  in  Chicago  so  soon  as  he  had 
found  a  steady  job.  Then  he  had  come  to 
Chicago  and  had  turned  workman.  His  brother 
Joe  conducted  a  small  hat  factory  on  Archer 
Avenue,  and  for  a  time  he  found  there  a  meager 
employment.  But  difficulties  had  occurred, 
times  were  bad,  the  hat  factory  was  involved 
in  debts,  the  repealing  of  a  certain  import 
duty  on  manufactured  felt  overcrowded  the 
home  market  with  cheap  Belgian  and  French 
products,  and  in  the  end  his  brother  had 
assigned  and  gone  to  Milwaukee. 

Thrown  out  of  work,  Lewiston  drifted  aim 
lessly  about  Chicago,  from  pillar  to  post,  work 
ing  a  little,  earning  here  a  dollar,  there  a  dime, 
but  always  sinking,  sinking,  till  at  last  the  ooze 
of  the  lowest  bottom  dragged  at  his  feet  and 
the  rush  of  the  great  ebb  went  over  him  and 


The  Bread  Line 


1 


engulfed  him  and  shut  him  out  from  the  lig 
and  a  park  bench  became  his  home  and*  the 
"bread  line"  his  chief  makeshift  of  subsistence. 

He  stood  now  in  the  enfolding  drizzle,  sodden, 
stupefied  with  fatigue.  Before  and  behind 
stretched  the  line.  There  was  no  talking. 
There  was  no  sound.  The  street  was  empty. 
It  was  so  still  that  the  passing  of  a  cable-car  in 
the  adjoining  thoroughfare  grated  like  pro 
longed  rolling  explosions,  beginning  and  end 
ing  at  immeasurable  distances.  The  drizzle 
descended  incessantly.  After  a  long  time 
midnight  struck. 

There  was  something  ominous  and  gravely 
impressive  in  this  interminable  line  of  dark 
figures,  close -pressed,  soundless;  a  crowd,  yet 
absolutely  still;  a  close -packed,  silent  file, 
waiting,  waiting  in  the  vast  deserted  night- 
ridden  street ;  waiting  without  a  word,  without 
a  movement,  there  under  the  night  and  under 
the  slow-moving  mists  of  rain. 

Few  in  the  crowd  were  professional  beggars. 
Most  of  them  were  workmen,  long  since  out  of 
work,  forced  into  idleness  by  long-continued 
"hard  times,"  by  ill  luck,  by  sickness.  To 
them  the  "breadline"  was  a  godsend.  At 
least  they  could  not  starve.  Between  jobs 
here  in  the  end  was  something  to  hold  them  up 
— a  small  platform,  as  it  were,  above  the  sweep 


24  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

of  black  water,  where  for  a  moment  they  might 
pause  and  take  breath  before  the  plunge. 

The  period  of  waiting  on  this  night  of  rain 
seemed  endless  to  those  silent,  hungry  men; 
but  at  length  there  was  a  stir.  The  line  moved. 
The  side  door  opened.  Ah,  at  last !  They 
were  going  to  hand  out  the  bread. 

But  instead  of  the  usual  white-aproned  under- 
cook  with  his  crowded  hampers  there  now 
appeared  in  the  doorway  a  new  man — a  young 
fellow  who  looked  like  a  bookkeeper's  assistant. 
He  bore  in  his  hand  a  placard,  which  he  tacked 
to  the  outside  of  the  door.  Then  he  disap 
peared  within  the  bakery,  locking  the  door 
after  him. 

A  shudder  of  poignant  despair,  an  unformed, 
inarticulate  sense  of  calamity,  seemed  to  run 
from  end  to  end  of  the  line.  What  had  hap 
pened?  Those  in  the  rear,  unable  to  read  the 
placard,  surged  forward,  a  sense  of  bitter  dis 
appointment  clutching  at  their  hearts. 

The  line  broke  up,  disintegrated  into  a  shape 
less  throng — a  throng  that  crowded  forward 
and  collected  in  front  of  the  shut  door  whereon 
the  placard  was  affixed.  Lewiston,  with  the 
others,  pushed  forward.  On  the  placard  he 
read  these  words: 

"Owing  to  the  fact  that  the  price  of  grain  has  been 
increased  to  two  dollars  a  bushel,  there  will  be  no 


The  Bread  Line  25 

distribution   of    bread  from    this    bakery    until    further 
notice." 

Lewiston  turned  away,  dumb,  bewildered. 
Till  morning  he  walked  the  streets,  going  on 
without  purpose,  without  direction.  But  now 
at  last  his  luck  had  turned.  Overnight  the 
wheel  of  his  fortunes  had  creaked  and  swung 
upon  its  axis,  and  before  noon  he  had  found  a 
job  in  the  street-cleaning  brigade.  In  the 
course  of  time  he  rose  to  be  first  shift-boss,  then 
deputy  inspector,  then  inspector,  promoted  to 
the  dignity  of  driving  in  a  red  wagon  with 
rubber  tires  and  drawing  a  salary  instead  of 
mere  wages.  The  wife  was  sent  for  and  a  new 
start  made. 

But  Lewiston  never  forgot.  Dimly  he  began 
to  see  the  significance  of  things.  Caught  once 
in  the  cogs  and  wheels  of  a  great  and  terrible 
engine,  he  had  seen — none  better — its  work 
ings.  Of  all  the  men  who  had  vainly  stood  in 
the  "bread  line"  on  that  rainy  night  in  early 
summer,  he,  perhaps,  had  been  the  only  one 
who  had  struggled  up  to  the  surface  again. 
How  many  others  had  gone  down  in  the  great 
ebb?  Grim  question;  he  dared  not  think  how 
many. 

He  had  seen  the  two  ends  of  a  great  wheat 
operation — a  battle  between  Bear  and  Bull. 
The  stories  (subsequently  published  in  the 


26  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

city's  press)  of  Truslow's  countermove  in  sell 
ing  Hornung  his  own  wheat,  supplied  the 
unseen  section.  The  farmer — he  who  raised 
the  wheat — was  ruined  upon  one  hand;  the 
working-man — he  who  consumed  it — was  ruined 
upon  the  other.  But  between  the  two,  the 
great  operators,  who  never  saw  the  wheat  they 
traded  in,  bought  and  sold  the  world's  food, 
gambled  in  the  nourishment  of  entire  nations, 
practised  their  tricks,  their  chicanery  and 
oblique  shifty  *  'deals,"  were  reconciled  in  their 
differences,  and  went  on  through  their  appointed 
way,  jovial,  contented,  enthroned,  and  unas 
sailable. 


THE  WIFE  OF  CHINO 


THE  WIFE  OF  CHINO 

I 


CHINO'S   WIFE 


the  back  porch  of  the  "office,"  young 
Lockwood — his  boots,  stained  with  the 
mud  of  the  mines  and  with  candle-drippings, 
on  the  rail — sat  smoking  his  pipe  and  looking 
off  down  the  canon. 

It  was  early  in  the  evening.  Lockwood, 
because  he  had  heard  the  laughter  and  horse 
play  of  the  men  of  the  night  shift  as  they  went 
down  the  canon  from  the  bunk-house  to  the 
tunnel-mouth,  knew  that  it  was  a  little  after 
seven.  It  would  not  be  necessary  to  go  indoors 
and  begin  work  on  the  columns  of  figures  of 
his  pay-roll  for  another  hour  yet.  He  knocked 
the  ashes  out  of  his  pipe,  refilled  and  lighted  it — 
stoppering  with  his  match-box — and  shot  a 
wavering  blue  wreath  out  over  the  porch  rail 
ing.  Then  he  resettled  himself  in  his  tilted 
chair,  hooked  his  thumbs  into  his  belt,  and 
fetched  a  long  breath. 

For  the  last  few  moments  he  had  been  con- 
29 


30  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

sidering,  in  that  comfortable  spirit  of  relaxed 
attention  that  comes  with  the  after-dinner 
tobacco,  two  subjects:  first,  the  beauty  of  the 
evening;  second,  the  temperament,  character, 
and  appearance  of  Felice  Za valla. 

As  for  the  evening,  there  could  be  no  two 
opinions  about  that.  It  was  charming.  The 
Hand-over-fist  Gravel  Mine,  though  not  in  the 
higher  Sierras,  was  sufficiently  above  the  level 
of  the  mere  foot-hills  to  be  in  the  sphere  of 
influence  of  the  greater  mountains.  Also,  it 
was  remote,  difficult  of  access.  Iowa  Hill, 
the  nearest  post-office,  was  a  good  eight  miles 
distant,  by  trail,  across  the  Indian  River.  It 
was  sixteen  miles  by  stage  from  Iowa  Hill  to 
Colfax,  on  the  line  of  the  Overland  Railroad,  and 
all  of  a  hundred  miles  from  Colfax  to  San 
Francisco. 

To  Lockwood's  mind  this  isolation  was  in 
itself  an  attraction.  Tucked  away  in  this  fold 
of  the  Sierras,  forgotten,  remote,  the  little 
community  of  a  hundred  souls  that  comprised 
the  personnel  of  the  Hand-over-fist  lived  out 
its  life  with  the  completeness  of  an  independent 
State,  having  its  own  government,  its  own 
institutions  and  customs.  Besides  all  this,  it 
had  its  own  dramas  as  well — little  complica 
tions  that  developed  with  the  swiftness  of  whirl 
pools,  and  that  trended  toward  culmination 


China's  Wife  31 

with  true  Western  directness.  Lockwood, 
college-bred — he  was  a  graduate  of  the  Colum 
bia  School  of  Mines — found  the  life  interesting. 

On  this  particular  evening  he  sat  over  his 
pipe  rather  longer  than  usual,  seduced  by  the 
beauty  of  the  scene  and  the  moment.  It  was 
very  quiet.  The  prolonged  rumble  of  the 
mine's  stamp-mill  came  to  his  ears  in  a  ceaseless 
diapason,  but  the  sound  was  so  much  a  matter 
of  course  that  Lockwood  no  longer  heard  it. 
The  millions  of  pines  and  redwoods  that 
covered  the  flanks  of  the  mountains  were 
absolutely  still.  No  wind  was  stirring  in  their 
needles.  But  the  chorus  of  tree-toads,  dry, 
staccato,  was  as  incessant  as  the  pounding 
of  the  mill.  Far-off — thousands  of  miles,  it 
seemed — an  owl  was  hooting,  three  velvet-soft 
notes  at  exact  intervals.  A  cow  in  the  stable 
near  at  hand  lay  down  with  a  long  breath, 
while  from  the  back  veranda  of  Chino  Za valla's 
cabin  came  the  clear  voice  of  Felice  singing 
"The  Spanish  Cavalier"  while  she  washed  the 
dishes. 

The  twilight  was  fading;  the  glory  that  had 
blazed  in  cloudless  vermilion  and  gold  over 
the  divide  was  dying  down  like  receding  music. 
The  mountains  were  purple-black.  From  the 
canon  rose  the  night  mist,  pale  blue,  while 
above  it  stood  the  smoke  from  the  mill,  a 


32  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

motionless  plume  of  sable,  shot  through  by  the 
last  ruddiness  of  the  afterglow. 

The  air  was  full  of  pleasant  odours — the 
smell  of  wood  fires  from  the  cabins  of  the 
married  men  and  from  the  ovens  of  the  cook 
house,  the  ammoniacal  whiffs  from  the  stables, 
the  smell  of  ripening  apples  from  "Boston's" 
orchard — while  over  all  and  through  all  came 
the  perfume  of  the  witch-hasel  and  tar-weed 
from  the  forests  and  mountain  sides,  as  pun 
gent  as  myrrh,  as  aromatic  as  aloes. 

"And  if  I  should  fall, 
In  vain  I  would  call," 

sang  Felice. 

Lockwood  took  his  pipe  from  his  teeth  and 
put  back  his  head  to  listen.  Felice  had  as  good 
a  voice  as  so  pretty  a  young  woman  should 
have  had.  She  was  twenty-two  or  twenty- 
three  years  of  age,  and  was  incontestably  the 
beauty  of  the  camp.  She  was  Mexican- 
Spanish,  tall  and  very  slender,  black-haired,  as 
lithe  as  a  cat,  with  a  cat's  green  eyes  and  with 
all  of  a  cat's  purring,  ingratiating  insinuation. 

Lockwood  could  not  have  told  exactly  just 
how  the  first  familiarity  between  him  and 
Felice  had  arisen.  It  had  grown  by  almost 
imperceptible  degrees  up  to  a  certain  point; 
now  it  was  a  chance  meeting  on  the  trail 
between  the  office  and  the  mill,  now  a  frag- 


China's  Wife  33 

ment  of  conversation  apropos  of  a  letter  to 
be  mailed,  now  a  question  as  to  some  regula 
tion  of  the  camp,  now  a  detail  of  repairs  done 
to  the  cabin  wherein  Felice  lived.  As  said 
above,  up  to  a  certain  point  the  process  of 
" getting  acquainted"  had  been  gradual,  and 
on  Lockwood's  part  unconscious;  but  beyond 
that  point  affairs  had  progressed  rapidly. 

At  first  Felice  had  been,  for  Lockwood,  a 
pretty  woman,  neither  more  nor  less;  but  by 
degrees  she  emerged  from  this  vague  classifica 
tion:  she  became  a  very  pretty  woman.  Then 
she  became  a  personality ;  she  occupied  a  place 
within  the  circle  which  Lockwood  called  his 
world,  his  life.  For  the  past  months  this  place 
had,  perforce,  to  be  enlarged.  Lockwood 
allowed  it  to  expand.  To  make  room  for 
Felice,  he  thrust  aside,  or  allowed  the  idea  of 
Felice  to  thrust  aside,  other  objects  which  long 
had  sat  secure.  The  invasion  of  the  woman 
into  the  sphere  of  his  existence  developed  at 
the  end  into  a  thing  veritably  headlong.  Deep- 
seated  convictions,  old-established  beliefs  and 
ideals,  even  the  two  landmarks  right  and  wrong, 
were  hustled  and  shouldered  about  as  the 
invasion  widened  and  penetrated.  This  state 
of  affairs  was  further  complicated  by  the  fact 
that  Felice  was  the  wife  of  Chino  Za valla, 
shift-boss  of  No.  4  gang  in  the' new  workings. 


n 

MADNESS 

IT  was  quite  possible  that,  though  Lockwood 
could  not  have  told  when  and  how  the  acquaint 
ance  between  him  and  Felice  began  and  pro 
gressed,  the  young  woman  herself  could.  But 
this  is  guesswork.  Felice  being  a  woman,  and 
part  Spanish  at  that,  was  vastly  more  self- 
conscious,  more  disingenuous,  than  the  man, 
the  Anglo-Saxon.  Also  she  had  that  fearless 
ness  that  very  pretty  women  have.  In  her 
more  refined  and  city-bred  sisters  this  fear 
lessness  would  be  called  poise,  or,  at  the  most, 
"cheek." 

And  she  was  quite  capable  of  making  young 
Lockwood,  the  superintendent,  her  employer, 
and  nominally  the  ruler  of  her  little  world, 
fall  in  love  with  her.  It  is  only  fair  to 
Felice  to  say  that  she  would  not  do  this 
deliberately.  She  would  be  more  conscious 
of  the  business  than  the  man,  than  Lockwood; 
but  in  affairs  such  as  this,  involving  women  like 
Felice,  there  is  a  distinction  between  deliber 
ately  doing  a  thing  and  consciously  doing  it. 
35 


36  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

Admittedly  this  is  complicated,  but  it  must  be 
understood  that  Felice  herself  was  complex, 
and  she  could  no  more  help  attracting  men 
to  her  than  the  magnet  the  steel  filings.  It 
made  no  difference  whether  the  man  was  the 
" breed"  boy  who  split  logging  down  by  the 
engine-house  or  the  young  superintendent  with 
his  college  education,  his  white  hands  and 
dominating  position;  over  each  and  all  who 
came  within  range  of  her  influence  Felice, 
with  her  black  hair  and  green  eyes,  her  slim 
figure  and  her  certain  indefinite  " cheek" — 
which  must  not  by  any  manner  of  means  be 
considered  as  " boldness" — cast  the  weird  of 
her  kind. 

If  one  understood  her  kind,  knew  how  to 
make  allowances,  knew  just  how  seriously  to 
take  her  eyes  and  her  "cheek,"  no  great  harm 
was  done.  Otherwise,  consequences  were  very 
apt  to  follow. 

Hicks  was  one  of  those  who  from  the  very 
first  had  understood.  Hicks  was  the  manager 
of  the  mine,  and  Lockwood's  chief — in  a  word, 
ike  boss.  He  was  younger  even  than  Lockwood, 
a  boy  virtually,  but  a  wonderful  boy — a  boy 
such  as  only  America,  western  America  at 
that,  could  produce,  masterful,  self-controlled, 
incredibly  capable,  as  taciturn  as  a  sphinx, 
strong  of  mind  and  of  muscle,  and  possessed 


Madness  3  7 

of  a  cold  gray  eye  that  was  as  penetrating  as 
chilled  steel. 

To  this  person,  impersonal  as  force  itself, 
Felice  had  once,  by  some  mysterious  feminine 
art,  addressed,  in  all  innocence,  her  little 
maneuver  of  fascination.  One  lift  of  the 
steady  eyelid,  one  quiet  glint  of  that  terrible 
cold  gray  eye,  that  poniarded  her  every 
tissue  of  complexity,  inconsistency,  and 
coquetry,  had  been  enough.  Felice  had  fled 
the  field  from  this  young  fellow,  so  much  her 
junior,  and  then  afterward,  in  a  tremor  of 
discomfiture  and  distress,  had  kept  her  distance. 

Hicks  understood  Felice.  Also  the  great 
majority  of  the  miners — shift-bosses,  chuck- 
tenders,  bed-rock  cleaners,  and  the  like- 
understood.  Lock  wood  did  not. 

It  may  appear  difficult  of  belief  that  the  men, 
the  crude,  simple  workmen,  knew  how  to  take 
Felice  Za valla,  while  Lockwood,  with  all  his 
education  and  superior  intelligence,  failed  in 
his  estimate  of  her.  The  explanation  lies  no 
doubt  in  the  fact  that  in  these  man-and-woman 
affairs  instinct  is  a  surer  guide  than  education 
and  intelligence,  unless,  indeed,  the  intelligence 
is  preternaturally  keen.  Lockwood' s  student 
life  had  benumbed  the  elemental  instinct, 
which  in  the  miners,  the  ''men, "  yet  remained 
vigorous  and  unblunted,  and  by  means  of  which 


. 


38  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

they  assessed  Felice  and  her  harmless  blandish 
ments  at  their  true  worth.  For  all  Lockwood's 
culture,  his  own  chuck-tenders,  unlettered 
fellows,  cumbersome,  slow-witted,  "knew 
women" — at  least,  women  of  their  own  world, 
like  Felice — better  than  he.  On  the  other 
hand,  his  intelligence  was  no  such  perfected 
instrument  as  Hicks' s,  as  exact  as  logarithms, 
as  penetrating  as  a  scalpel,  as  uncoloured  by 
emotions  as  a  steel  trap. 

Lockwood's  life  had  been  a  narrow  one.  He 
had  studied  too  hard  at  Columbia  to.  see  much 
of  the  outside  world,  and  he  had  come  straight 
from  his  graduation  to  take  his  first  position. 
Since  then  his  life  had  been  spent  virtually  in 
the  wilderness,  now  in  Utah,  now  in  Arizona, 
now  in  British  Columbia,  and  now,  at  last,  in 
Placer  County,  California.  His  lot  was  the 
common  lot  of  young  mining  engineers.  It 
might  lead  one  day  to  great  wealth,  but  mean 
while  it  was  terribly  isolated. 

Living  thus  apart  from  the  world,  Lockwood 
very  easily  allowed  his  judgment  to  get,  as  it 
were,  out  of  perspective.  Class  distinctions 
lost  their  sharpness,  and  one  woman — as,  for 
instance,  Felice — was  very  like  another — as,  for 
instance,  the  girls  his  sisters  knew  "  back  home" 
in  New  York. 

As  a  last  result,  the  passions  were  strong. 


Madness  39 

Things  were  done  "for  all  they  were  worth" 
in  Placer  County,  California.  When  a  man 
worked,  he  worked  hard;  when  he  slept,  he 
slept  soundly;  when  he  hated,  he  hated  with 
primeval  intensity;  and  when  he  loved  he  grew 
reckless. 

It  was  all  one  that  Felice  was  Chino's  wife. 
Lockwood  swore  'between  his  teeth  that  she 
should  be  his  wife.  He  had  arrived  at  this 
conclusion  on  the  night  that  he  sat  on  the  back 
porch  of  his  office  and  watched  the  moon  com 
ing  up  over  the  Hog  Back.  He  stood  up  at 
length  and  thrust  his  pipe  into  his  pocket,  and 
putting  an  arm  across  the  porch  pillar,  leaned 
his  forehead  against  it  and  looked  out  far  in  the 
purple  shadows. 

"It's  madness,"  he  muttered;  "yet,  I  know 
it — sheer  madness ;  but,  by  the  Lord !  I  am 
mad — and  I  don't  care." 


Ill 

CHINO   GOES  TO   TOWN 

As  time  went  on  the  matter  became  more 
involved.  Hicks  was  away.  Chino  Zavalla, 
stolid,  easy-going,  came  and  went  about  his 
work  on  the  night  shift,  always  touching  his 
cap  to  Lockwood  when  the  two  crossed  each 
other's  paths,  always  good-natured,  always 
respectful,  seeing  nothing  but  his  work. 

Every  evening,  when  not  otherwise  engaged, 
Lockwood  threw  a  saddle  over  one  of  the 
horses  and  rode  in  to  Iowa  Hill  for  the  mail, 
returning  to  the  mine  between  ten  and  eleven. 
On  one  of  these  occasions,  as  he  drew  near  to 
Chino' s  cabin,  a  slim  figure  came  toward  him 
down  the  road  and  paused  at  his  horse's  head. 
Then  he  was  surprised  to  hear  Felice's  voice 
asking,  *  'Ave  you  a  letter  for  me,  then, 
Meester  Lockwude?" 

Felice  made  an  excuse  of  asking  thus  for  her 
mail  each  night  that  Lockwood  came  from 
town,  and  for  a  month  they  kept  up  appear 
ances;  but  after  that  they  dropped  even  that 
pretense,  and  as  often  as  he  met  her  Lockwood 


42  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

dismounted  and  walked  by  her  side  till  the 
light  in  the  cabin  came  into  view  through  the 
chaparral. 

At  length  Lockwood  made  a  mighty  effort. 
He  knew  how  very  far  he  had  gone  beyond  the 
point  where  between  the  two  landmarks  called 
right  and  wrong  a  line  is  drawn.  He  contrived 
to  keep  away  from  Felice.  He  sent  one  of  the 
men  into  town  for  the  mail,  and  he  found 
reasons  to  be  in  the  mine  itself  whole  half -days 
at  -a  time.  Whenever  a  moment's  leisure 
impended,  he  took  his  shotgun  and  tramped 
the  mine  ditch  for  leagues,  looking  for  quail 
and  gray  squirrels.  For  three  weeks  he  so 
managed  that  he  never  once  caught  sight  of 
Felice's  black  hair  and  green  eyes,  never  once 
hoard  the  sound  of  her  singing. 

But  the  madness  was  upon  him  none  the  less, 
and  it  rode  and  roweled  him  like  a  hag  from 
dawn  to  dark  and  from  dark  to  dawn  again, 
till  in  his  complete  loneliness,  in  the  isolation  of 
that  simple,  primitive  life,  where  no  congenial 
mind  relieved  the  monotony  by  so  much  as  a 
word,  morbid,  hounded,  tortured,  the  man 
grew  desperate — was  ready  for  anything  that 
would  solve  the  situation. 

Once  every  two  weeks  Lockwood  "  cleaned  up 
and  amalgamated" — that  is  to  say,  the  mill  was 
stopped  and  the  " ripples"  where  the  gold  was 


Chino  Goes  to  Town  43 

caught  were  scraped  clean.  Then  the  ore  was 
sifted  out,  melted  down,  and  poured  into  the 
mould,  whence  it  emerged  as  the  "brick,"  a 
dun-coloured  rectangle,  rough-edged,  immensely 
heavy,  which  represented  anywhere  from  two 
to  six  thousand  dollars.  This  was  sent  down 
by  express  to  the  smelt  ing-house. 

But  it  was  necessary  to  take  the  brick  from 
the  mine  to  the  express  office  at  Iowa  Hill. 

This  duty  devolved  upon  Lockwood  and 
Chino  Za valla.  Hicks  had  from  the  very  first 
ordered  that  the  Spaniard  should  accompany 
the  superintendent  upon  this  mission.  Zavalla 
was  absolutely  trustworthy,  as  honest  as  the 
daylight,  strong  physically,  cool-headed,  dis 
creet,  and — to  Hicks' s  mind  a  crowning  recom 
mendation — close-mouthed.  For.  about  the 
mine  it  was  never  known  when  the  brick  went 
to  town  or  who  took  it.  Hicks  had  impressed 
this  fact  upon  Zavalla.  He  was  to  tell  nobody 
that  he  was  delegated  to  this  duty.  "  Not 
even" — Hicks  had  leveled  a  forefinger  at  Chino, 
and  the  cold  eyes  drove  home  the  injunction  as 
the  steam-hammer  drives  the  rivet — ' '  not  even 
your  wife."  And  Zavalla  had  promised.  He 
would  have  trifled  with  dynamite  sooner  than 
with  one  of  Hicks's  orders. 

So  the  fortnightly  trips  to  town  in  company 
with  Lockwood  were  explained  in  various 


44  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

fashions  to  Felice.  She  never  knew  that  the 
mail-bag  strapped  to  her  husband's  shoulders 
on  those  occasions  carried  some  five  thousand 
dollars'  worth  of  bullion. 

On  a  certain  Friday  in  early  June  Lockwood 
had  amalgamated,  and  the  brick,  duly  stamped, 
lay  in  the  safe  in  the  office.  The  following 
night  he  and  Chino,  who  was  relieved  from 
mine  duty  on  these  occasions,  were  to  take  it 
in  to  Iowa  Hill. 

Late  Saturday  afternoon,  however,  the  engi 
neer's  boy  brought  word  to  Chino  that  the 
superintendent  wanted  him  at  once.  Chino 
found  Lockwood  lying  upon  the  old  lounge 
in  the  middle  room  of  the  office,  his  foot  in 
bandages. 

"Here's  luck,  Chino,"  he  exclaimed,  as  the 
Mexican  paused  on  the  threshold.  "Come  in 
and — shut  the  door, "  he  added  in  a  lower  voice. 

* '  Dios! ' '  murmured  Chino.     ' '  An  accident  ? ' ' 

"Rather,"  growled  Lockwood.  "That  fool 
boy,  Davis' s  kid — the  car-boy,  you  know — ran 
me  down  in  the  mine.  I  yelled  at  him.  Some 
how  he  couldn't  stop.  Two  wheels  went  over 
my  foot — and  the  car  loaded,  too." 

Chino  shuddered  politely. 

"Now  here's  the  point,"  continued  Lock- 
wood.  "Um — there's  nobody  round  outside 
there?  Take  a  look,  Chino,  by  the  window 


China  Goes  to  Town  45 

there.  All  clear,  eh?  Well,  here's  the  point. 
That  brick  ought  to  go  in  to-night  just  the 
same,  hey?" 

"  Oh — of  a  surety,  of  a  surety. "  Chino  spoke 
in  Spanish. 

"Now  I  don't  want  to  let  any  one  else  take 
my  place — you  never  can  tell — the  beggars  will 
talk.  Not  all  like  you,  Chino. " 

"Gracias,  signer.     It  is  an  honour." 

"Do  you  think  you  can  manage  alone?  I 
guess  you  can,  hey?  No  reason  why  you 
couldn't." 

Chino  shut  his  eyes  tight  and  put  up  a  palm. 
"  Rest  assured  of  that,  Signer  Lockwude.  Rest 
assured  of  that." 

"Well,  get  around  here  about  nine." 

"  It  is  understood,  sigrior. " 

Lockwood,  who  had  a  passable  knowledge  of 
telegraphy,  had  wired  to  the  Hill  for  the  doctor. 
About  suppertime  one  appeared,  and  Lockwood 
bore  the  pain  of  the  setting  with  such  fortitude 
as  he  could  command.  He  had  his  supper 
served  in  the  office.  The  doctor  shared  it  with 
him  and  kept  him  company. 

During  the  early  hours  of  the  evening  Lock- 
wood  lay  on  the  sofa  trying  to  forget  the  pain. 
There  was  no  easier  way  of  doing  this  than  by 
thinking  of  Felice.  Inevitably  his  thoughts 
reverted  to  her.  Now  that  he  was  helpless, 


46  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

he  could  secure  no  diversion  by  plunging  into 
the  tunnel,  giving  up  his  mind  to  his  work. 
He  could  not  now  take  down  his  gun  and  tramp 
the  ditch.  Now  he  was  supine,  and  the  longing 
to  break  through  the  mesh,  wrestle  free  from 
the  complication,  gripped  him  and  racked  him 
with  all  its  old-time  force. 

Promptly  at  nine  o'clock  the  faithful  Chino 
presented  himself  at  the  office.  He  had  one  of 
the  two  horses  that  were  used  by  Lockwood  as 
saddle  animals,  and  as  he  entered  he  opened 
his  coat  and  tapped  the  hilt  of  a  pistol  showing 
from  his  trousers  pocket,  with  a  wink  and  a 
grin.  Lockwood  took  the  brick  from  the  safe, 
strapped  it  into  the  mail-bag,  and  Chino, 
swinging  it  across  his  shoulders,  was  gone, 
leaving  Lockwood  to  hop  back  to  the  sofa, 
there  to  throw  himself  down  and  face  once  more 
his  trouble. 


IV 

A  DESPATCH  FROM  THE  EXPRESS  MESSENGER 

WHAT  made  it  harder  for  Lockwood  just  now 
was  that  even  on  that  very  day,  in  spite  of  all 
precaution,  in  spite  of  all  good  resolutions,  he 
had  at  last  seen  Felice.  Doubtless  the  young 
woman  herself  had  contrived  it;  but,  be  that 
as  it  may,  Lockwood,  returning  from  a  tour  of 
inspection  along  the  ditch,  came  upon  her  not 
far  from  camp,  but  in  a  remote  corner,  and  she 
had  of  course  demanded  why  he  kept  away 
from  her.  What  Lockwood  said  in  response 
he  could  not  now  remember;  nor,  for  that 
matter,  was  any  part  of  the  conversation  very 
clear  to  his  memory.  The  reason  for  this  was 
that,  just  as  he  was  leaving  her,  something 
of  more  importance  than  conversation  had 
happened.  Felice  had  looked  at  him. 

And  she  had  so  timed  her  look,  had  so  insinu 
ated  it  into  the  little,  brief,  significant  silences 
between  their  words,  that  its  meaning  had  been 
very  clear.  Lockwood  had  left  her  with  his 
brain  dizzy,  his  teeth  set,  his  feet  stumbling 

47 


48  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

and  fumbling  down  the  trail,  for  now  he  knew 
that  Felice  wanted  him  to  know  that  she 
regretted  the  circumstance  of  her  marriage  to 
Chino  Za valla;  he  knew  that  she  wanted  him 
to  know  that  the  situation  was  as  intolerable 
for  her  as  for  him. 

All  the  rest  of  the  day,  even  at  this  moment, 
in  fact,  this  new  phase  of  the  affair  intruded  its 
pregnant  suggestions  upon  his  mind,  to  the 
exclusion  of  everything  else.  He  felt  the  drift 
strong  around  him ;  he  knew  that  in  the  end  he 
would  resign  himself  to  it.  At  the  same  time 
he  sensed  the  abyss,  felt  the  nearness  of  some 
dreadful,  nameless  cataclysm,  a  thing  of  black 
shadow,  bottomless,  terrifying. 

"  Lord  !"  he  murmured,  as  he  drew  his  hand 
across  his  forehead,  "Lord!  I  wonder  where 
this  thing  is  going  to  fetch  up. " 

As  he  spoke,  the  telegraph  key  on  his 
desk,  near  at  hand,  began  all  at  once  to 
click  off  his  call.  Groaning  and  grumbling, 
Lockwood  heaved  himself  up,  and,  with  his 
right  leg  bent,  hobbled  from  chair-back  to 
chair-back  over  to  the  desk.  He  rested  his 
right  knee  on  his  desk  chair,  reached  for 
his  key,  opened  the  circuit,  and  answered. 
There  was  an  instant's  pause,  then  the  instru 
ment  began  to  click  again.  The  message  was 
from  the  express  messenger  at  Iowa  Hill. 


Despatch  from  the  Express  Messenger     49 

Word    by    word    Lockwood    took    it    off    as 
follows : 


''Reno — Kid — will — attempt — hold-up — of — 
brick — on — trail — to-night —  do  — not — sen  d — 
till — advised — at — this — end. ' ' 

Lockwood  let  go  the  key  and  jumped  back 
from  the  desk,  lips  compressed,  eyes  alight, 
his  fists  clenched  till  the  knuckles  grew  white. 
The  whole  figure  of  him  stiffened  as  tense  as 
drawn  wire,  braced  rigid  like  .a  finely  bred 
hound  "  making  game. " 

Chino  was  already  half  an  hour  gone  by  the 
trail,  and  the  Reno  Kid  was  a  desperado  of  the 
deadliest  breed  known  to  the  West.  How  he 
came  to  turn  up  here'  there  was  no  time  to 
inquire.  He  was  on  hand,  that  was  the  point; 
and  Reno  Kid  always  "shot  to  kill."  This 
would  be  no  mere  hold-up ;  it  would  be  murder. 

Just  then,  as  Lockwood  snatched  open  a 
certain  drawer  of  his  desk  where  he  kept  his 
revolver,  he  heard  from  down  the  road,  in  the 
direction  of  Chino's  cabin,  Felice's  voice  singing: 

"To  the  war  I  must  go, 
To  fight  for  my  country  and  you,  dear." 

Lockwood  stopped  short,  his  arm  at  full 
stretch,  still  gripping  tight  the  revolver  that  he 
had  half  pulled  from  the  drawer — stopped 
short  and  listened. 


50  A  Deal  in  Wheat 


The  solution  of  everything  had  come. 

He  saw  it  in  a  flash.  The  knife  hung  poised 
over  the  knot — even  at  that  moment  was  falling. 
Nothing  wafc  asked  of  him — nothing  but  inertia. 

For  an  mstant,  alone  there  in  that  isolated 
mining-camp,  high  above  the  world,  lost  and 
forgotten  in  the  gloom  of  the  canons  and  red 
woods,  Lockwood  heard  the  crisis  of  his  life 
come  crashing  through  the  air  upon  him  like 
the  onslaught  of  a  whirlwind.  For  an  instant, 
and  no  more,  he  considered.  Then  he  cried 
aloud : 

"No,  no;  I  can't,  I  can't — not  this  way!" 
And  with  the  words  he  threw  the  belt  of  the 
revolver  about  his  hips  and  limped  and  scam 
pered  from  the  room,  drawing  the  buckle  close. 

How  he  gained  the  stable  he  never  knew, 
nor  how  he  backed  the  horse  from  the  building, 
nor  how,  hopping  on  one  leg,  he  got  the  head 
stall  on  and  drew  the  cinches  tight. 

But  the  wrench  of  pain  in  his  foot  as,  swing 
ing  up  at  last,  he  tried  to  catch  his  off  stirrup 
was  reality  enough  to  clear  any  confusion  of 
spirit.  Hanging  on  as  best  he  might  with  his 
knees  and  one  foot,  Lockwood,  threshing  the 
horse's  flanks  with  the  stinging  quirt  that 
tapered  from  the  reins  of  the  bridle,  shot  from 
the  camp  in  a  swirl  of  clattering  hoofs,  flying 
pebbles  and  blinding  clouds  of  dust. 


THE    TRAIL 

THE  night  was  black  dark  under  the  red 
woods,  so  impenetrable  that  he  could  not  see 
his  horse's  head,  and  braced  even  as  he  was 
for  greater  perils  it  required  all  his  courage  to 
ride  top-speed  at  this  vast  slab  of  black  that 
like  a  wall  he  seemed  to  charge  head  down  with 
every  leap  of  his  bronco's  hoofs. 

For  the  first  half-hour  the  trail  mounted 
steadily,  then,  by  the  old  gravel-pits,  it  topped 
the  divide  and  swung  down  over  more  open 
slopes,  covered  only  with  chaparral  and  second 
growths.  Here  it  was  lighter,  and  Lockwood 
uttered  a  fervent  "Thank  God!"  when,  a  few 
moments  later,  the  moon  shouldered  over  the 
mountain  crests  ahead  of  him  and  melted  the 
black  shadows  to  silver-gray.  Beyond  the 
gravel-pits  the  trail  turned  and  followed  the 
flank  of  the  slope,  level  here  for  nearly  a  mile. 
Lockwood  set  his  teeth  against  the  agony  of  his 
foot  and  gave  the  bronco  the  quirt  with  all  his 
strength. 

In   another   half-hour   he   had   passed   Cold 


52  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

Canon,    and   twenty   minutes   after   that   had 
begun    the    descent    into    Indian    River.     He\ 
forded  the  river  at  a  gallop,  and,  with  the  water 
dripping  from  his  very  hat-brim,  drove  labour 
ing  under  the  farther  slope. 

Then  he  drew  rein  with  a  cry  of  bewilderment 
and  apprehension.  The  lights  of  Iowa  Hill 
were  not  two  hundred  yards  distant.  He  had 
covered  the  whole  distance  from  the  mine,  and 
where  was  Chino  ? 

There  was  but  one  answer :  back  there  along 
the  trail  somewhere,  at  some  point  by  which 
Lockwood  had  galloped  headlong  and  unheed 
ing,  lying  up  there  in  the  chaparral  with 
Reno's  bullets  in  his  body. 

There  was  no  time  now  to  go  on  to  the  Hill. 
Chino,  if  he  was  not  past  help,  needed  it  without 
an  instant's  loss  of  time.  Lockwood  spun  the 
horse  about.  Once  more  the  ford,  once  more 
the  canon  slopes,  once  more  the  sharp  turn  by 
Cold  Canon,  once  more  the  thick  darkness 
under  the  redwoods.  Steadily  he  galloped  on, 
searching  the  roadside. 

Then  all  at  once  he  reined  in  sharply,  bring 
ing  the  horse  to  a  standstill,  one  ear  turned 
down  the  wind.  The  night's  silence  was 
broken  by  a  multitude  of  sounds — the  laboured 
breathing  of  the  spent  bronco,  the  saddle  creak 
ing  as  the  dripping  flanks  rose  and  fell,  the 


The    Trail  53 

touch  of  wind  in  the  tree-tops  and  the  chorusing 
of  the  myriad  tree-toads.  But  through  all 
these,  distinct,  as  precise  as  a  clock-tick,  Lock- 
wood  had  heard,  and  yet  distinguished,  the 
click  of  a  horse's  hoof  drawing  near,  and  the 
horse  was  at  a  gallop :  Reno  at  last. 

Lockwood  drew  his  pistol.  He  stood  in 
thick  shadow.  Only  some  twenty  yards  in 
front  of  him  was  there  any  faintest  break  in 
the  darkness;  but  at  that  point  the  blurred 
moonlight  made  a  grayness  across  the  trail, 
just  a  tone  less  deep  than  the  redwoods' 
shadows. 

With  his  revolver  cocked  and  trained  upon 
this  patch  of  grayness,  Lockwood  waited, 
holding  his  breath. 

The  gallop  came  blundering  on,  sounding 
in  the  night's  silence  as  loud  as  the  passage  of 
an  express  train ;  and  the  echo  of  it,  flung  back 
from  the  canon  side,  confused  it  and  distorted 
it  till,  to  Lockwood' s  morbid  alertness,  it  seemed 
fraught  with  all  the  madness  of  flight,  all  the 
hurry  of  desperation. 

Then  the  hoof-beats  rose  to  a  roar,  and  a 
shadow  just  darker  than  the  darkness  heaved 
against  the  grayness  that  Lockwood  held 
covered  with  his  pistol.  Instantly  he  shouted 
aloud : 

11  Halt !     Throw  up  your  hands  !" 


54  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

His  answer  was  a  pistol  shot. 

He  dug  his  heels  to  his  horse,  firing  as  the 
animal  leaped  forward.  The  horses  crashed 
together,  rearing,  plunging,  and  Lockwood,  as 
he  felt  the  body  of  a  man  crush  by  him  on  the 
trail,  clutched  into  the  clothes  of  him,  and, 
with  the  pistol  pressed  against  the  very  flesh, 
fired  again,  crying  out  as  he  did  so : 

"Drop  your  gun,  Reno!  I  know  you.  I'll 
kill  you  if  you  move  again  !" 

And  then  it  was  that  a  wail  rose  into  the 
night,  a  wail  of  agony  and  mortal  apprehension : 

"Signer  Lockwude,  Signor  Lockwude,  for 
the  love  of  God,  don't  shoot !  Tis  I— Chino 
Zavalla." 


VI 

THE  DISCOVERY  OF  FELICE 

AN  hour  later,  Felice,  roused  from  her  sleep 
by  loud  knocking  upon  her  door,  threw  a  blanket 
about  her  slim  body,  serape  fashion,  and 
opened  the  cabin  to  two  gaunt  scarecrows, 
who,  the  one,  half  supported  by  the  other, 
himself  far  spent  and  all  but  swooning,  lurched 
by  her  across  the  threshold  and  brought  up 
wavering  and  bloody  in  the  midst  of  the  cabin 
floor. 

"For  Dios!  For  Dios!"  cried  Felice.  "Ah, 
love  of  God!  what  misfortune  has  befallen 
Chino!"  Then  in  English,  and  with  a  swift 
leap  of  surprise  and  dismay:  "Ah,  Meester 
Lockwude,  air  you  hurt?  Eh,  tell  me-a ! 
Ah,  it  istoodraidful!" 

"No,  no,"  gasped  Lockwood,  as  he  dragged 
Chino' s  unconscious  body  to  the  bed  Felice 
had  just  left.  "No;  I— I've  shot  him.  We 
met_there  on  the  trail."  Then  the  nerves 
that  had  stood  strain  already  surprisingly  long 
snapped  and  crisped  back  upon  themselves  like 
broken  harp-strings. 

55 


56  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

"Pve  shot  him!  I've  shot  him!"  he  cried. 
"Shot  him,  do  you  understand?  Killed  him, 
it  may  be.  Get  the  doctor,  quick !  He's  at 
the  office.  I  passed  Chino  on  the  trail  over  to 
the  Hill.  He'd  hid  in  the  bushes  as  he  heard 
me  coming  from  behind,  then  when  I  came 
back  I  took  him.  Oh,  I'll  explain  later.  Get 
the  doctor,  quick. ' ' 

Felice  threw  on  such  clothes  as  came  to  her 
hand  and  ran  over  to  the  office,  returning  with 
the  doctor,  half  dressed  and  blinking  in  the 
lantern-light.  He  went  in  to  the  wounded 
man  at  once,  and  Lockwood,  at  the  end  of  all 
strength,  dropped  into  the  hammock  on  the 
porch,  stretching  out  his  leg  to  ease  the  anguish 
of  his  broken  foot.  He  leaned  back  and  closed 
his  eyes  wearily,  aware  only  of  a  hideous  swirl 
of  pain,  of  intolerable  anxiety  as  to  Chino's 
wound,  and,  most  of  all,  of  a  mere  blur  of 
confusion  wherein  the  sights  and  sounds  of 
the  last  few  hours  tore  through  his  brain  with 
the  plunge  of  a  wild  galloping  such  as  seemed 
to  have  been  in  his  ears  for  years  and  years. 

But  as  he  lay  thus  he  heard  a  step  at  his 
side.  Then  came  the  touch  of  Felice's  long 
brown  hand  upon  his  face.  He  sat  up,  opening 
his  eyes. 

"You  aisk  me-a, "  she  said,  ueef  I  do  onder- 
staind,  eh?  Yais,  I  onderstaind.  You — " 


The  Discovery  of  Felice  57 

her  voice  was  a  whisper — "you  shoot  Chino, 
eh?  I  know.  You  do  those  thing'  for  me-a. 
I  am  note  angri,  no-a.  You  ver'  sharp  man, 
eh  ?  All  for  love  oaf  Felice,  eh  ?  Now  we  be 
happi,  maybe;  now  we  git  married  soam  day 
byne-by,  eh?  Ah,  you, one  brave  man,  Sigfior 
Lockwude !" 

She  would  have  taken  his  hand,  but  Lock- 
wood,  the  pain  all  forgot,  the  confusion  all 
vanishing,  was  on  his  feet.  It  was  as  though 
a  curtain  that  for  months  had  hung  between 
him  and  the  blessed  light  of  clear  understand 
ing  had  suddenly  been  rent  in  twain  by  her 
words.  The  woman  stood  revealed.  All  the 
baseness  of  her  tribe,  all  the  degraded  savagery 
of  a  degenerate  race,  all  the  capabilities  for 
wrong,  for  sordid  treachery,  that  lay  dormant 
in  her,  leaped  to  life  at  this  unguarded  moment, 
and  in  that  new  light,  that  now  at  last  she 
had  herself  let  in,  stood  pitilessly  revealed,  a 
loathsome  thing,  hateful  as  malevolence  itself. 

"What,"  shouted  Lockwood,  "you  think 
—think  that  I — that  I  could — oh-h,  it's  mon 
strous — you—  He  could  find  no  words  to 
voice  his  loathing.  Swiftly  he  turned  away 
from  her,  the  last  spark  of  an  evil  love  dying 
down  forever  in  his  breast. 

It  was  a  transformation,  a  thing  as  sudden 
as  a  miracle,  as  conclusive  as  a  miracle,  and 


58  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

« 

with  all  a  miracle's  sense  of  uplift  and  power. 
In  a  second  of  time  the  scales  seemed  to  fall 
from  the  man's  eyes,  fetters  from  his  limbs;  he 
saw,  and  he  was  free. 

At  the  door  Lockwood  met  the  doctor: 

"Well?" 

"He's  all  right;  only  a  superficial  wound. 
He'll  recover.  But  you — how  about  you? 
All  right?  Well,  that  is  a  good  hearing. 
You've  had  a  lucky  escape,  my  boy. " 

"I  have  had  a  lucky  escape,"  shouted  Lock- 
wood.  "You  don't  know  just  how  lucky  it 
was." 


A  BARGAIN  WITH  PEG-LEG 


A  BARGAIN  WITH  PEG-LEG 

TTEY,  youse!"  shouted  the  car-boy.  He 
brought  his  trundling,  jolting,  loose- 
jointed  car  to  a  halt  by  the  face  of  the  drift. 
"Hey,  youse!"  he  shouted  again. 

Bunt  shut  off  the  Burly  air-drill  and  nodded. 

"Chaw,"  he  remarked  to  me. 

We  clambered  into  the  car,  and,  as  the  boy 
released  the  brake,  rolled  out  into  the  main 
tunnel  of  the  Big  Dipple,  and  banged  and 
bumped  down  the  long  incline  that  led  to  the 
mouth. 

"Chaw"  was  dinner.  It  was  one  o'clock 
in  the  morning,  and  the  men  on  the  night  shift 
were  taking  their  midnight  spell  off.  Bunt  was 
back  at  his  old  occupation  of  miner,  and  I — 
the  one  loafer  of  all  that  little  world  of  workers 
— had  brought  him  a  bottle  of  beer  to  go  with 
the  "chaw";  for  Bunt  and  I  were  ancient 
friends. 

As  we  emerged  from  the  cool,  cave-like 
dampness  of  the  mine  and  ran  out  into  the 
wonderful  night  air  of  the  Sierra  foothills, 
warm,  dry,  redolent  of  witch-hazel,  the  car 
boy  began  to  cough,  and,  after  we  had  climbed 

61 


62  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

out  of  the  car  and  had  sat  down  on  the  em 
bankment  to  eat  and  drink,  Bunt  observed: 

"D'ye  hear  that  bark?  That  kid's  a  one- 
lunger  for  fair.  Which  ain't  no  salubrious  graft 
for  him — this  hiking  cars  about  in  the  bowels 
of  the  earth.  Some  day  he'll  sure  up  an'  quit. 
Ought  to  go  down  to  Yuma  a  spell. " 

The  engineer  in  the  mill  was  starting  the 
stamps.  They  got  under  way  with  broken, 
hiccoughing  dislocations,  bumping  and  stum 
bling  like  the  hoofs  of  a  group  of  horses  on  the 
cattle-deck  in  a  gale.  Then  they  jumped  to  a 
trot,  then  to  a  canter,  and  at  last  settled  down 
to  the  prolonged  roaring  gallop  that  reverber 
ated  far  off  over  the  entire  canon. 

"  I  knew  a  one-lunger  once, "  Bunt  continued, 
as  he  uncorked  the  bottle,  "and  the  acquaint 
ance  was  some  distressful  by  reason  of  its  bring 
ing  me  into  strained  relations  with  a  cow- 
rustlin',  hair-liftin',  only-one-born-in-captivity, 
man-eatin'  brute  of  a  one-legged  Greaser  which 
he  was  named  Peg-leg  Smith.  He  was  shy  a 
leg  because  of  a  shotgun  that  the  other  man 
thought  wasn't  loaded.  And  this  here  happens, 
lemme  tell  you,  'way  down  in  the  Panamint 
country,  where  they  wasn't  no  doctor  within 
twenty  miles,  and  Peg-leg  outs  with  his  bowie 
and  amputates  that  leg  hisself ,  then  later  makes 
a  wood  stump  outa  a  ole  halter  and  a  table-leg. 


A  Bargain  with  Peg-leg  63 

I  guess  the  whole  j ing-bang  of  it  turned  his 
head,  for  he  goes  bad  and  loco  thereafter,  and 
begins  shootin'  and  r'arin'  up  an'  down  the 
hull  Southwest,  a-roarin'  and  a-bellerin'  and 
a-takin'  on  amazin'.  We  dasn't  say  boo  to  a 
yaller  pup  while  he's  round.  I  never  see  such 
mean  blood.  Jus'  let  the  boys  know  that 
Peg-leg  was  anyways  adjacent  an'  you  can 
gamble  they  walked  chalk. 

"Y'see,  this  Peg-leg  lay  it  out  as  how  he 
couldn't  abide  no  cussin'  an'  swearin'.  He 
said  if  there  was  any  tall  talkin'  done  he  wanted 
to  do  it.  And  he  sure  could.  I've  seed  him 
hold  on  for  six  minutes  by  the  watch  an'  never 
repeat  hisself  once.  An'  shoot !  Say,  lemme 
tell  you  he  did  for  two  Greasers  once  in  a  bar 
room  at  La  Paz,  one  in  front  o'  him,  t'other 
straight  behind,  him  standing  between  with  a 
gun  in  each  hand,  and  shootin'  both  guns  at 
the  same  time.  Well,  he  was  just  a  terror," 
declared  Bunt,  solemnly,  "and  when  he  was 
in  real  good  form  there  wa'n't  a  man  south  o' 
Leadville  dared  to  call  his  hand. 

"Now,  the  way  I  met  up  with  this  skunkin' 
little  dewdrop  was  this-like.  It  was  at  Yuma, 
at  a  time  when  I  was  a  kid  of  about  nineteen. 
It  was  a  Sunday  mornin' ;  Peg-leg  was  in  town. 
He  was  asleep  on  a  lounge  in  the  back  room  o' 
Bud  Overick's  Grand  Transcontinental  Hotel. 


64  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

(I  used  to  guess  Bud  called  it  that  by  reason 
that  it  wa'n't  grand,  nor  transcontinental,  nor 
yet  a  hotel — it  was  a  bar.)  This  was  twenty 
year  ago,  and  in  those  days  I  knowed  a  one- 
lunger  in  Yuma  named  Clarence.  (He  couldn't 
help  that — he  was  a  good  kid — but  his  name  was 
Clarence.)  We  got  along  first-rate.  Yuma 
was  a  great  consumptive  place  at  that  time. 
They  used  to  come  in  on  every  train ;  yes,  and 
go  out,  too — by  freight. 

"Well,  findin'  that  they  couldn't  do  much 
else  than  jes'  sit  around  an'  bark  and  keep 
their  shawls  tight,  these  'ere  chaps  kinda 
drew  together,  and  lay  it  out  to  meet  every 
Sunday  morning  at  Bud's  to  sorta  talk  it 
over  and  have  a  quiet  game.  One  game  they 
had  that  they  played  steady,  an'  when  I 
drifted  into  Bud's  that  morning  they  was  about 
a  dozen  of  'em  at  it — Clarence,  too.  When  I 
came  in,  there  they  be,  all  sittin'  in  a  circle 
round  a  table  with  a  cigar  box  on  it.  They'd 
each  put  four  bits  into  the  box.  That  was  the 
pot. 

UA  stranger  wouldn't  'a'  made  nothin'  very 
excitin'  out  of  that  game,  nor  yet  would  'a' 
caught  on  to  what  it  were.  For  them  pore 
yaps  jes'  sat  there,  each  with  his  little  glass 
thermometer  in  his  mouth,  a-waitin'  and 
a-waitin'  and  never  sayin'  a  word.  Then  bime- 


A  Bargain  with  Peg-leg  65 

by  Bud,  who's  a-holdin'  of  the  watch  on  'cm, 
sings  out  '  Time  ! '  an'  they  all  takes  their 
thermometers  out  an'  looks  at  'em  careful-like 
to  see  where  they  stand. 

"  'Mine's  ninety-nine,'  says  one. 

"An'  another  says: 

"  'Mine's  a  hundred.' 

"An'  Clarence  pipes  up — coughin'  all  the 
time: 

"  'Mine's  a  hundred  'n  one  'n  'alf.' 

"An',  no  one  havin'  a  higher  tempriture  than 
that,  Clarence  captures  the  pot.  It  was  a  queer 
kind  o'  game. 

"Well,  on  that  particular  Sunday  morning 
they's  some  unpleasantness  along  o'  one  o'  the 
other  one-lungers  layin'  it  out  as  how  Clarence 
had  done  some  monkey-business  to  make  his 
tempriture  so  high.  It  was  said  as  how 
Clarence  had  took  and  drunk  some  hot  tea 
afore  comin'  into  the  game  at  Bud's.  They  all 
began  to  discuss  that  same  p'int. 

"Naturally,  they  don't  go  at  it  polite,  and 
to  make  their  remarks  p'inted  they  says  a  cuss- 
word  occasional,  and  Clarence,  bein'  a  high- 
steppin'  gent  as  takes  nobody's  dust,  slings  it 
back  some  forceful. 

"Then  all  at  once  they  hears  Peg-leg  beller 
from  where's  he  layin'  on  the  lounge  (they  ain't 
figured  on  his  bein'  so  contiguous) ,  and  he  gives 


66  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

it  to  be  understood,  does  Peg-leg,  as  how  the 
next  one-lunger  that  indulges  in  whatsoever 
profanity  will  lose  his  voice  abrupt. 

"They  all  drops  out  at  that,  bar  the  chap 
who  had  the  next  highest  tempriture  to  Clarence. 
Him  having  missed  the  pot  by  only  a  degree 
or  so  is  considerable  sore. 

"  '  Why/  says  he,  'I've  had  a  reg'lar  fever  since 
yesterday  afternoon,  an'  only  just  dodged  a 
hem'rage  by  a  squeak.  I'm  all  legitimate,  I 
am;  an'  if  you-alls  misdoubts  as  how  my  tem 
priture  ain't  normal  you  kin  jes'  ask  the  doctor. 
I  don't  take  it  easy  that  a  strapping  healthy 
gesabe  whose  case  ain't  nowheres  near  the 
hopeless  p'int  yet  steps  in  here  with  a  scalded 
mouth  and  plays  it  low.' 

"Clarence  he  r'ars  right  up  at  that  an'  forgits 
about  Peg-leg  an'  expresses  doubts,  not  to  say 
convictions,  about  the  one-lunger's  chances  of 
salvation.  He  puts  it  all  into  about  three 
words,  an'  just  as  quick  as  look  at  it  we  hears  ol' 
Peg-leg's  wooden  stump  a-comin'.  We  stam 
pedes  considerable  prompt,  but  Clarence  falls 
over  a  chair,  an'  before  he  kin  get  up  Peg-leg 
has  him  by  the  windpipe. 

"Now  I  ain't  billin'  myself  as  a  all-round 
star  hero  an'  general  grand-stand  man.  But  I 
was  sure  took  with  Clarence,  an'  I'd  'a'  been 
real  disappointed  if  Peg-leg  'ud  a-killed  him 


A  Bargain  with  Peg-leg  67 

that  morning — which  he  sure  was  tryin'  to  do 
when  I  came  in  for  a  few  chips. 

"  I  don'  draw  on  Peg-leg,  him  being  down  on 
his  knees  over  Clarence,  an'  his  back  turned, 
but  without  sensin'  very  much  what  I'm  a-doin' 
of  I  grabs  holt  o'  the  first  part  o'  Peg-leg  that 
comes  handy,  which,  so  help  me,  Bob,  is  his  old 
wooden  leg.  I  starts  to  pull  him  off  o'  Clarence, 
but  instead  o'  that  I  pulls  off  the  wooden  leg  an' 
goes  a-staggerin'  back  agin  the  wall  with  the 
thing  in  my  fist. 

"  Y'know  how  it  is  now  with  a  fightin'  pup  if 
you  pull  his  tail  while  he's  a-chawin'  up  the 
other  pup.  Ye  can  bat  him  over  the.  head  till 
you're  tired,  or  kick  him  till  you  w'ars  your 
boot  out,  an'  he'll  go  right  on  chawin'  the 
harder.  But  monkey  with  his  tail  an'  he's 
that  sensitive  an'  techy  about  it  that  he'll  take 
a  interest  right  off. 

"Well,  it  were  just  so  with  Peg-leg — though 
I  never  knew  it.  Just  by  accident  I'd  laid  holt 
of  him  where  he  was  tender ;  an'  when  he  felt 
that  leg  go — say,  lemme  tell  you,  he  was  some 
excited.  He  forgits  all  about  Clarence,  and 
he  lines  out  for  me,  a-clawin'  the  air.  Lucky 
he'd  left  his  gun  in  the  other  room. 

"Well,  sir,  y'ought  to  have  seen  him, 
a-hoppin'  on  one  foot,  and  banging  agin  the 
furniture,  jes'  naturally  black  in  the  face 


68  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

with  rage,  an'  doin'  his  darnedest  to  lay 
his  hands  on  me,  roarin'  all  the  whiles  like 
a  steer  with  a  kinked  tail. 

"Well,  I'm  skeered,  and  I  remarks  that  same 
without  shame.  I'm  skeered.  I  don't  want 
to  come  to  no  grapples  with  Peg-leg  in  his 
wrath,  an'  I  knows  that  so  long  as  he  can't 
git  his  leg  he  can't  take  after  me  very  fast. 
Bud's  saloon  backs  right  up  agin  the  bluff  over 
the  river.  So  what  do  I  do  but  heave  that  same 
wooden  leg  through  one  o'  the  back  windows, 
an'  down  she  goes  (as  I  thought)  mebbe  seventy 
feet  into  the  canon  o'  the  Colorado?  And 
then,  mister  man,  /  skins  out — fast. 

"I  takes  me  headlong  flight  by  way  o'  the 
back  room  and  on-root  pitches  Peg-leg's  gun 
over  into  the  canon,  too,  an'  then  whips  around 
the  corner  of  the  saloon  an'  fetches  out  ag'in  by 
the  street  in  front.  With  his  gun  gone  an' 
his  leg  gone,  Peg-leg — so  long's  y' ain't  within 
arm's  reach — is  as  harmless  as  a  horned  toad. 
So  I  kinda  hangs  'round  the  neighbourhood 
jes'  to  see  what-all  mout  turn  up. 

"  Peg-leg,  after  hoppin'  back  to  find  that  his 
gun  was  gone,  to  look  for  his  leg,  comes  out  by 
the  front  door,  hoppin'  from  one  chair  to  another, 
an'  seein'  me  standin'  there  across  the  street 
makes  remarks ;  an'  he  informs  me  that  because 
of  this  same  little  turn-up  this  mornin'  I  ain't 


A  Bargain  with  Peg-leg  69 

never  goin'  to  live  to  grow  hair  on  my  face. 
His  observations  are  that  vigorous  an'  p'inted 
that  I  sure  begin  to  see  it  that  way,  too,  and  I 
says  to  myself: 

'  Now  you,  Bunt  McBride,  you've  cut  it  out 
for  yourself  good  and  hard,  an'  the  rest  o' 
your  life  ain't  goin'  to  be  free  from  nervousness. 
Either  y'ought  to  'a'  let  this  here  hell-roarin' 
maverick  alone  or  else  you  should  'a'  put  him 
clean  out  o'  business  when  you  had  holt  o'  his 
shootin'-iron.  An'  I  ain't  a  bit  happy.'  And 
then  jes'  at  this  stage  o'  the  proceedings  occurs 
what  youse  'ud  call  a  diversion. 

"It  seemed  that  that  wood  stump  didn't  go 
clean  to  the  river  as  I  first  figured,  but  stuck 
three-fourths  the  way  down.  An'  a-course 
there's  a  fool  half-breed  kid  who's  got  to  chase 
after  it,  thinkin'  to  do  Peg-leg  a  good  turn. 

"I  don't  know  nothin'  about  this,  but  jes' 
stand  there  talkin'  back  to  Peg-leg,  an'  pre- 
tendin'  I  ain't  got  no  misgivings,  when  I  sees 
this  kid  comin'  a-cavoortin'  an'  a-cayoodlin' 
down  the  street  with  the  leg  in  his  hands, 
hollerin'  out: 

'Here's  your  leg,  Mister  Peg-leg!  I  went 
an'  got  it  for  you,  Mister  Peg-leg  ! ' 

"It  ain't  so  likely  that  Peg-leg  could  'a' 
caught  me  even  if  he'd  had  his  leg,  but  I  wa'n't 
takin'  no  chances.  An'  as  Peg-leg  starts  for  the 


70  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

kid  I  start,  too — with  my  heart  knockin'  agin 
my  front  teeth,  you  can  bet. 

"  I  never  knew  how  fast  a  man  could  hop  till 
that  mornin',  an',  lookin'  at  Peg-leg  with  the 
tail  o'  my  eye  as  I  ran,  it  seemed  to  me  as  how 
he  was  a-goin'  over  the  ground  like  a  ole 
he-kangaroo.  But  somehow  he  gets  off  his 
balance  and  comes  down  all  of  a  smash  like  a 
rickety  table,  an'  I  reaches  the  kid  first  an' 
takes  the  leg  away  from  him. 

"  I  guess  Peg-leg  must  'a'  begun  to  lay  it  out 
by  then  that  I  held  a  straight  flush  to  his  ace 
high,  for  he  sits  down  on  the  edge  of  the  side 
walk  an',  being  some  winded,  too,  he  just  glares. 
Then  byme-by  he  says: 

"  '  You  think  you  are  some  smart  now,  sonny, 
but  I'm  a-studyin'  of  your  face  so's  I'll  know 
who  to  look  for  when  I  git  a  new  leg ;  an'  believe 
me,  I'll  know  it,  m'son — yours  and  your  friend's 
too'  (he  meant  Clarence) — 'an'  I  guess  you'll 
both  be  kind  o'  sick  afore  I'm  done  with  you. 
Your  he  goes  on,  tremendous  disgustful. 
'You !  an'  them  one-lungers  a-swearin'  an' 
a-cussin'  an'  bedamnin'  an'  bedevilin'  one 
a-other.  Ain't  ye  just  ashamed  o'  yourselves  ?' 
(he  thought  I  was  a  one-lunger,  too) ;  'ain't  ye 
ashamed — befoulin'  your  mouths,  and  dis- 
turbin'  the  peace  along  of  a  quiet  Sunday 
mornin',  an'  you-alls  waist  over  in  your  graves? 


A  Bargain  with  Peg-leg  71 

I'm  fair  sick  o'  my  job,'  he  remarks,  goin'  kind 
o'  thoughtful.  Ten  years  now  I've  been 
range-ridin'  all  this  yere  ranch,  a-doin'  o'  my 
little  feeble,  or'nary  best  to  clean  out  the 
mouths  o'  you  men  an'  purify  the  atmosphere 
o'  God's  own  country,  but  I  ain't  made  one 
convert.  I've  pounded  'em  an'  booted  'em, 
an'  busted  'em  an'  shot  'em  up,  an'  they  go  on 
cussin'  each  other  out  harder 'n  ever.  I  don't 
know  w'at  all  to  do  an'  I  sometimes  gets  plumb 
discouraged-like. ' 

"Now,  hearin'  of  him  talk  that-a-way,  an' 
a-knowin'  of  his  weakness,  I  gits  a  idea.  It's 
a  chanst  and  mebbee  it  don't  pan  out,  but  I 
puts  it  up  as  a  bluff.  I  don't  want,  you  see, 
to  spend  the  rest  o'  my  appointed  time  in  this 
yere  vale  o'  tears  a-dodgin'  o'  Peg-leg  Smith, 
an'  in  the  end,  after  all,  to  git  between  the  wind 
and  a  forty-eight  caliber  do-good,  sure  not. 
So  I  puts  up  a  deal.  Says  I:  Teg-leg,  I'll 
make  a  bargint  along  o'  you.  You  lays  it  out 
as  how  you  ain't  never  converted  nobody  out 
o'  his  swearin'  habits.  Now  if  you  wants,  'ere's 
a  chanst.  You  gimmee  your  word  as  a  gent 
and  a  good-man-an'-true,  as  how  you  won't 
never  make  no  play  to  shoot  me  up,  in  nowise 
whatsoever,  so  long  as  we  both  do  live,  an' 
promise  never  to  bust  me,  or  otherwise,  and 
promise  never  to  rustle  me  or  interfere  with 


72  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

my  life,  liberty  and  pursuit  o'  happiness,  an' 
thereunto  you  set  your  seal  an'  may  Lord  'a' 
mercy  on  your  soul — you  promise  that,  an'  I 
will  agree  an'  covenant  with  the  party  o'  the 
first  part  to  abstain  an'  abjure,  early  or  late, 
dry  or  drinkin',  in  liquor  or  out,  out  o'  luck  or 
in,  rangin'  or  roundin',  from  all  part  an'  parcel  o' 
profanity,  cuss-words,  little  or  big,  several  and 
separate,  bar  none;  this  yere  agreement  to  be 
considered  as  bindin'  an'  obligatory  till  the 
day  o'  your  demise,  decease  or  death.  There  /' 
says  I,  'there's  a  fair  bargint  put  up  between 
man  an'  man,  an'  I  puts  it  to  you  fair.  You 
comes  in  with  a  strong  ante  an'  you  gets  a 
genuine,  guaranteed  an'  high-grade  convert — 
the  real  article.  You  stays  out,  an'  not  only 
you  loses  a  good  chanst  to  cut  off  and  dam  up 
as  vigorous  a  stream  o'  profanity  as  is  found 
between  here  and  Laredo,  but  you  loses  a  hand 
made,  copper-bound,  steel-riveted,  artificial 
limb — which  in  five  minutes  o'  time/  says  I, 
windin'  up,  'will  sure  feed  the  fire.  There's 
the  bargint.' 

"Well,  the  ol'  man  takes  out  time  for  about 
as  long  as  a  thirsty  horse-rustler  could  put 
away  half  a  dozen  drinks  an'  he  studies  the 
proposition  sideways  and  endways  an'  down 
side  up.  Then  at  last  he  ups  and  speaks  out 
decided-like : 


A  Bargain  with  Peg-leg  73 

"  '  Son,'  he  says,  'son,  it's  a  bargint.  Gimmee 
my  leg.' 

"Somehow  neither  o'  us  misdoubts  as  how 
the  other  man  won't  keep  his  word;  an'  I 
gives  him  his  stump,  an'  he  straps  her  on 
joyful-like,  just  as  if  he'd  got  back  a  ole  friend. 
Then  later  on  he  hikes  out  for  Mojave  and  I 
don'  see  him  no  more  for  mebbee  three  years. " 

"And  then?"  I  prompted. 

"Well,  I'll  tell  you,"  continued  Bunt, 
between  mouthfuls  of  pie,  "I'll  tell  you.  This 
yere  prejudice  agin  profanity  is  the  only  thing 
about  this  yere  Peg-leg  that  ain't  pizen  bad,  an' 
that  prejudice,  you  got  to  know,  was  just  along 
o'  his  being  loco  on  that  one  subjeck.  'Twa'n't 
as  if  he  had  any  real  principles  or  convictions 
about  the  thing.  It  was  just  a  loco  prejudice. 
Just  as  some  gesabes  has  feelin's  agin  cats  an' 
snakes,  or  agin  seein'  a  speckled  nigger.  It 
was  just  on-reasonable.  So  what  I'm  aimin' 
to  have  you  understand  is  the  fact  that  it  was 
extremely  appropriate  that  Peg-leg  should  die, 
that  it  was  a  blame  good  thing,  and  somethin' 
to  be  celebrated  by  free  drinks  all  round. 

"You  can  say  he  treated  me  white,  an'  took 
my  unsupported  word.  Well,  so  he  did;  but 
that  was  in  spite  o'  what  he  really  was  hisself, 
'way  on  the  inside  o'  him.  Inside  o'  him  he 
was  black-bad,  an'  it  wa'n't  a  week  after  we 


74  -A  Deal  in  Wheat 

had  made  our  bargint  that  he  did  for  a  little 
Mojave  kid  in  a  way  I  don't  like  to  think  of. 

"So  when  he  took  an'  died  like  as  how  I'm 
a-going  to  tell  you  of,  I  was  plumb  joyful,  not 
only  because  I  could  feel  at  liberty  to  relieve 
my  mind  when  necessary  in  a  manner  as  is 
approved  of  and  rightful  among  gents — not 
only  because  o'  that,  but  because  they  was  one 
less  bad  egg  in  the  cow-country. 

"  Now  the  manner  o'  Peg-leg's  dying  was  sure 
hilarious-like.  I  didn't  git  over  laughin'  about 
it  for  a  month  o'  Sundays — an'  I  ain't  done 
yet.  It  was  sure  a  joke  on  Peg-leg.  The 
cutest  joke  that  ever  was  played  off  on  him. 

"  It  was  in  Sonora — Sonora,  Arizona,  I  mean. 
They'd  a-been  a  kind  o'  gold  excitement  there, 
and  all  the  boys  had  rounded  up.  The  town 
was  full — -chock-a-block.  Peg-leg  he  was  there 
too,  drunk  all  the  time  an'  bullyin'  everybody, 
an'  slambangin'  around  in  his  same  old  way. 
That  very  day  he'd  used  a  friend  o'  his — his 
best  friend — cruel  hard:  just  mean  and  nasty, 
you  know. 

"Well,  I'm  sitting  into  a  little  game  o'  faro 
about  twelve  o'clock  at  night,  me  an'  about  a 
dozen  o'  the  boys.  We're  good  an'  interested, 
and  pretty  much  to  the  good  o'  the  game,  an' 
somebody's  passin'  drinks  when  all  at  once 
there's  a  sure  big  rumpus  out  in  the  street, 


A  Bargain  with  Peg-leg  75 

an'   a  gent   sticks  his    head    thro'    the    door 
an'  yells  out: 

"  '  Hi,  there,  they's  a  fire  !  The  Golden  West 
Hotel  is  on  fire  !' 

"We  draws  the  game  as  soon  as  convenient 
and  hikes  out,  an',  my  word,  you'd  'a'  thought 
from  the  looks  o'  things  as  how  the  whole  town 
was  going.  But  it  was  only  the  hotel — the 
Golden  West,  where  Peg-leg  was  stayin' ;  an' 
when  we  got  up  we  could  hear  the  ol'  murderer 
bellerin'  an'  ragin',  an'  him  drunk — of  course. 

"Well,  I'm  some  excited.  Lord  love  you, 
I'd  as  soon  'a'  seen  Peg-leg  shot  as  I  would  eat, 
an'  when  I  remembers  the  little  Mojave  kid 
I'm  glad  as  how  his  time  is  at  hand.  Saved 
us  the  trouble  o'  lynchin'  that  sooner  or  later 
had  to  come. 

"  Peg-leg's  room  was  in  the  front  o'  the  house 
on  the  fourth  floor,  but  the  fire  was  all  below, 
and  what  with  the  smoke  comin'  out  the  third- 
story  winders  he  couldn't  see  down  into  the 
street,  no  more'n  the  boys  could  see  him — only 
they  just  heard  him  bellerin'. 

" Then  some  one  of  'em  sings  out: 

1  Hey,  Peg-leg,  jump !     We  got  a  blanket 
here. ' 

"An'  sure  enough  he  does  jump  !" 

Here  Bunt  chuckled  grimly,  muttering, 
"Yes,  sir,  sure  enough  he  did  jump." 


76  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

"I  don't  quite  see,"  I  observed,  " where  the 
laugh  conies  in.  What  was  the  joke  of  it?" 

"The  joke  of  it  was,"  finished  Bunt,  "that 
they  hadn't  any  blanket. " 


THE   PASSING   OF   COCK-EYE 
BLACKLOCK 


THE  PASSING  OF  COCK-EYE  BLACKLOCK 

TTT'ELL,  m'son, "  observed  Bunt  about  half 
an  hour  after  supper,  "if  your  proven 
der  has  shook  down  comfortable  by  now, 
we  might  as  well  jar  loose  and  be  moving 
along  out  yonder." 

We  left  the  fire  and  moved  toward  the 
hobbled  ponies,  Bunt  complaining  of  the  quality 
of  the  outfit's  meals.  "  Down  in  the  Panamint 
country,"  he  growled,  "we  had  a  Chink  that 
was  a  sure  frying-pan  expert;  but  this  Dago — 
my  word !  That  ain't  victuals,  that  supper. 
That's  just  a*  ingenious  device  for  removing 
superfluous  appetite.  Next  time  I  assimilate 
nutriment  in  this  camp  I'm  sure  going  to  take 
chloroform  beforehand.  Careful  to  draw  your 
cinch  tight  on  that  pinto  bronc'  of  yours. 
She  always  swells  up  same  as  a  horned  toad 
soon  as  you  begin  to  saddle  up. " 

We  rode  from  the  circle  of  the  camp-fire's 
light  and  out  upon  the  desert.  It  was  Bunt's 
turn  to  ride  the  herd  that  night,  and  I  had 
volunteered  to  bear  him  company. 

Bunt  was  one  of  a  fast-disappearing  type. 
He  knew  his  West  as  the  cockney  knows  his 

79 


8o  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

Piccadilly.  He  had  mined  with  and  for  Ralston, 
had  soldiered  with  Crook,  had  turned  cards  in  a 
faro  game  at  Laredo,  and  had  known  the 
Apache  Kid.  He  had  fifteen  separate  and 
different  times  driven  the  herds  from  Texas 
to  Dodge  City,  in  the  good  old,  rare  old,  wild 
old  days  when  Dodge  was  the  headquarters 
for  the  cattle  trade,  and  as  near  to  heaven  as 
the  cowboy  cared  to  get.  He  had  seen  the 
end  of  gold  and  the  end  of  the  buffalo,  the 
beginning  of  cattle,  the  beginning  of  wheat, 
and  the  spreading  of  the  barbed-wire  fence, 
that,  in  the  end,  will  take  from  him  his  occupa 
tion  and  his  revolver,  his  chaparejos  and  his 
usefulness,  his  lariat  and  his  reason  for  being. 
He  had  seen  the  rise  of  a  new  period,  the  suc 
cessive  stages  of  which,  singularly  enough, 
tally  exactly  with  the  progress  of  our  own 
world-civilization:  first  the  nomad  and  hunter, 
then  the  herder,  next  and  last  the  husband 
man.  He  had  passed  the  mid-mark  of  his  life. 
His  mustache  was  gray.  He  had  four  friends 
— his  horse,  his  pistol,  a  teamster  in  the  Indian 
Territory  Panhandle  named  Skinny,  and  me. 

The  herd — I  suppose  all  told  there  were 
some  two  thousand  head — we  found  not  far 
from  the  water-hole.  We  relieved  the  other 
watch  and  took  up  our  night's  vigil.  It  was 
about  nine  o'clock.  The  night  was  fine,  calm. 


The    Passing    of    Cock-eye    Blacklock     81 

There  was  no  cloud.  Toward  the  middle 
watches  one  could  expect  a  moon.  But  the 
stars,  the  stars !  In  Idaho,  on  those  lonely 
reaches  of  desert  and  range,  where  the  shadow 
of  the  sun  by  day  and  the  courses  of  the  con 
stellations  by  night  are  the  only  things  that 
move,  these  stars  are  a  different  matter  from 
those  bleared  pin-points  of  the  city  after  dark, 
seen  through  dust  and  smoke  and  the  glare  of 
electrics  and  the  hot  haze  of  fire-signs.  On 
such  a  night  as  that  when  I  rode  the  herd  with 
Bunt  anything  might  have  happened;  one 
could  have  believed  in  fairies  then,  and  in  the 
buffalo-ghost,  and  in  all  the  weirds  of  the 
craziest  Apache  "Messiah"  that  ever  made 
medicine. 

One  remembered  astronomy  and  the  "meas 
ureless  distances"  and  the  showy  problems, 
including  the  rapid  moving  of  a  ray  of  light 
and  the  long  years  of  its  travel  between  star 
and  star,  and  smiled  incredulously.  Why, 
the  stars  were  just  above  our  heads,  were  not 
much  higher  than  the  flat-topped  hills  that 
barred  the  horizons.  Venus  was  a  yellow  lamp 
hung  in  a  tree;  Mars  a  red  lantern  in  a  clock- 
tower. 

One  listened  instinctively  for  the  tramp 
of  the  constellations.  Orion,  Cassiopeia  and 
Ursa  Major  marched  to  and  fro  on  the  vault 


82  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

like  cohorts  of  legionaries,  seemingly  within 
call  of  our  voices,  and  all  without  a  sound. 

But  beneath  these  quiet  heavens  the  earth 
disengaged  multitudinous  sounds — small  sounds, 
minimized  as  it  were  by  the  muffling  of  the 
night.  Now  it  was  the  yap  of  a  coyote 
leagues  away;  now  the  snapping  of  a  twig  in 
the  sage-brush ;  now  the  mysterious,  indefinable 
stir  of  the  heat-ridden  land  cooling  under  the 
night.  But  more  often  it  was  the  confused 
murmur  of  the  herd  itself — the  click  of  a  horn, 
the  friction  of  heavy  bodies,  the  stamp  of  a 
hoof,  with  now  and  then  the  low,  complaining 
note  of  a  cow  with  a  calf,  or  the  subdued  noise 
of  a  steer  as  it  lay  down,  first  lurching  to  the 
knees,  ithen  rolling  clumsily  upon  the 
haunch,  with  a  long,  stertorous  breath  of  satis 
faction. 

Slowly  at  Indian  trot  we  encircle  the  herd. 
Earlier  in  the  evening  a  prairie-wolf  had 
pulled  down  a  calf,  and  the  beasts  were  still 
restless. 

Little  eddies  of  nervousness  at  long  intervals 
developed  here  and  there  in  the  mass — eddies 
that  not  impossibly  might  widen  at  any  time 
with  perilous  quickness  to  the  maelstrom  of  a 
stampede.  So  as  he  rode  Bunt  sang  to  these 
great  brutes,  literally  to  put  them  to  sleep- 
sang  an  old  grandmother's  song,  with  all  the 


The    Passing    of    Cock-eye    Blacklock     83 

quaint  modulations  of  sixty,  seventy,  a  hun 
dred  years  ago : 

44  With  her  ogling  winks 
And  bobbling  blinks, 
Her  quizzing  glass, 
Her  one  eye  idle, 
Oh,  she  loved  a  bold  dragoon, 

With  his  broadsword,  saddle,  bridle. 
Whack,  fol-de-rol  1 " 

I  remember  that  song.  My  grandmother- 
so  they  tell  me — used  to  sing  it  in  Carolina,  in 
the  thirties,  accompanying  herself  on  a  harp, 
if  you  please: 

"Oh,  she  loved  a  bold  dragoon, 

With  his  broadsword,  saddle,  bridle." 

It  was  in  Charleston,  I  remembered,  and  the 
slave-ships  used  to  discharge  there  in  those 
days.  My  grandmother  had  sung  it  then  to 
her  beaux;  officers  they  were;  no  wonder  she 
chose  it — "Oh,  she  loved  a  bold  dragoon "- 
and  now  I  heard  it  sung  on  an  Idaho  cattle- 
range  to  quiet  two  thousand  restless  steers. 

Our  talk  at  first,  after  the  cattle  had  quieted 
down,  ran  upon  all  manner  of  subjects.  It  is 
astonishing  to  note  what  strange  things  men 
will  talk  about  at  night  and  in  a  solitude. 
That  night  we  covered  religion,  of  course, 
astronomy,  love  affairs,  horses,  travel,  history, 
poker,  photography,  basket-making,  and  the 
Darwinian  theory.  But  at  last  inevitably 


84  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

we  came  back  to  cattle  and  the  pleasures  and 
dangers  of  riding  the  herd. 

"I  rode  herd  once  in  Nevada,"  remarked 
Bunt,  "and  I  was  caught  into  a  blizzard,  and  I 
was  sure  freezing  to  death.  Got  to  where  I 
couldn't  keep  my  eyes  open,  I  was  that  sleepy. 
Tell  you  what  I  did.  Had  some  eating-tobacco 
along,  and  I'd  chew  it  a  spell,  then  rub  the  juice 
into  my  eyes.  Kept  it  up  all  night.  Blame 
near  blinded  me,  but  I  come  through.  Me 
and  another  man  named  Blacklock — Cock-eye 
Blacklock  we  called  him,  by  reason  of  his  having 
one  eye  that  was  some  out  of  line.  Cock-eye 
sure  ought  to  have  got  it  that  night,  for  he 
went  bad  afterward,  and  did  a  heap  of  killing 
before  he  did  get  it.  He  was  a  bad  man  for 
sure,  and  the  way  he  died  is  a  story  in  itself." 

There  was  a  long  pause.  The  ponies  jogged 
on.  Rounding  on  the  herd,  we  turned  south 
ward. 

"  He  did  'get  it'  finally,  you  say, "  I  prompted. 

"He  certainly  did,"  said  Bunt,  "and  the 
story  of  it  is  what  a  man  with  a'  imaginary 
mind  like  you  ought  to  make  into  one  of  your 
friction  tales." 

"Is  it  about  a  treasure?"  I  asked  with 
apprehension.  For  ever  since  I  once  made  a 
tale  (of  friction)  out  of  one  of  Bunt's  stories 
of  real  life,  he  has  been  ambitious  for  me  to 


The    Passing    of    Cock-eye    Blacklock     85 

write  another,  and  is  forever  suggesting  motifs 
which  invariably — I  say  invariably — imply 
the  discovery  of  great  treasures.  With  him, 
fictitious  literature  must  always  turn  upon  the 
discovery  of  hidden  wealth. 

"No,"  said  he,  "it  ain't  about  no  treasure, 
but  just  about  the  origin,  hist'ry  and  develop 
ment — and  subsequent  decease — of  as  mean  a 
Greaser  as  ever  stole  stock,  which  his  name  was 
Cock-eye  Blacklock. 

"You  see,  this  same  Blacklock  went  bad 
about  two  summers  after  out  meet-up  with  the 
blizzard.  He  worked  down  Yuma  way  and 
over  into  New  Mexico,  where  he  picks  up  with 
a  sure-thing  gambler,  and  the  two  begin  to 
devastate  the  population.  They  do  say  when 
he  and  his  running  mate  got  good  and  through 
with  that  part  of  the  Land  of  the  Brave,  men 
used  to  go  round  trading  guns  for  commissary, 
and  clothes  for  ponies,  and  cigars  for  whisky 
and  such.  There  just  wasn't  any  money  left 
anywhere.  Those  sharps  had  drawed  the  land 
scape  clean.  Some  one  found  a  dollar  in  a 
floor-crack  in  a  saloon,  and  the  barkeep'  gave 
him  a  gallon  of  forty-rod  for  it,  and  used  to 
keep  it  in  a  box  for  exhibition,  and  the  crowd 
would  get  around  it  and  paw  it  over  and  say: 
'My!  my!  Whatever  in  the  world  is  this  ex 
tremely  cu-roos  coin?' 


86  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

"Then  Blacklock  cuts  loose  from  his  running 
mate,  and  plays  a  lone  hand  through  Arizona 
and  Nevada,  up  as  far  as  Reno  again,  and  there 
he  stacks  up  against  a  kid — a  little  tenderfoot 
kid  so  new  he  ain't  cracked  the  green  paint  off 
him — and  skins  him.  And  the  kid,  being 
foolish  and  impulsive-like,  pulls  out  a  pea 
shooter.  It  was  a  twenty -two,"  said  Bunt, 
solemnly.  "Yes,  the  kid  was  just  that  pore, 
pathetic  kind  to  carry  a  dinky  twenty-two, 
and  with  the  tears  runnin'  down  his  cheeks 
begins  to  talk  tall.  Now  what  does  that  Cock 
eye  do?  Why,  that  pore  kid  that  he  had 
skinned  couldn't  'a'  hurt  him  with  his  pore  little 
bric-k-brac.  Does  Cock-eye  take  his  little 
parlour  ornament  away  from  him,  and  spank 
him,  and  tell  him  to  go  home?  No,  he  never. 
The  kid's  little  tin  pop-shooter  explodes  right 
in  his  hand  before  he  can  crook  his  forefinger 
twice,  and  while  he's  a-wondering  what-all  has 
happened  Cock-eye  gets  his  two  guns  on  him, 
slow  and  deliberate  like,  mind  you,  and  throws 
forty-eights  into  him  till  he  ain't  worth  shooting 
at  no  more.  Murders  him  like  the  mud-eating, 
horse-thieving  snake  of  a  Greaser  that  he  is ;  but 
being  within  the  law,  the  kid  drawing  on  him 
first,  he  don't  stretch  hemp  the  way  he  should. 

"Well,  fin'ly  this  Blacklock  blows  into  a 
mining-camp  in  Placer  County,  California, 


The  Passing  of  Cock-eye  Blacldoik       87 

where  I'm  chuck-tending  on  the  night-shift. 
This  here  camp  is  maybe  four  miles  across  the 
divide  from  Iowa  Hill,  and  it  sure  is  named  a 
cu-roos  name,  which  it  is  Why-not.  They  is 
a  barn  contiguous,  where  the  mine  horses  are 
kep',  and,  blame  me !  if  there  ain't  a  weather 
cock  on  top  of  that  same — a  golden  trotting- 
horse — upside  down.  When  the  stranger  an' 
pilgrim  comes  in,  says  he  first  off:  'Why'n 
snakes  they  got  that  weathercock  horse  upside 
down — why?'  says  he.  'Why-not,'  says  you, 
and  the  drinks  is  on  the  pilgrim. 

"That  all  went  very  lovely  till  some  gesabe 
opens  up  a  placer  drift  on  the  far  side  the 
divide,  starts  a  rival  camp,  an'  names  her 
Because.  The  Boss  gets  mad  at  that,  and 
rights  up  the  weathercock,  and  renames  the 
camp  Ophir,  and  you  don't  work  no  more 
pilgrims. 

"Well,  as  I  was  saying,  Cock-eye  drifts  into 
Why-not  and  begins  diffusing  trouble.  He 
skins  some  of  the  boys  in  the  hotel  over  in 
town,  and  a  big  row  comes  of  it,  and  one  of  the 
bed-rock  cleaners  cuts  loose  with  both  guns. 
Nobody  hurt  but  a  quarter-breed,  who  loses  a' 
eye.  But  the  marshal  don't  stand  for  no 
short-card  men,  an'  closes  Cock-eye  up  some 
prompt.  Him  being  forced  to  give  the  boys 
back  their  money  is  busted  an'  can't  get  away 


88  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

from  camp.  To  raise  some  wind  he  begins 
depredating. 

"He  robs  a  pore  half-breed  of  a  cayuse, 
and  shoots  up  a  Chink  who's  panning  tailings, 
and  generally  and  variously  becomes  toe 
pronounced,  till  he's  run  outen  camp.  He's 
sure  stony-broke,  not  being  able  to  turn  a 
card  because  of  the  marshal.  So  he  goes  tc 
live  in  a  ole  cabin  up  by  the  mine  ditch,  and 
sits  there  doing  a  heap  o'  thinking,  and  hatch 
ing  trouble  like  a'  ole  he-hen. 

"Well,  now,  with  that  deporting  of  Cock-eye 
comes  his  turn  of  bad  luck,  and  it  sure  winds 
his  clock  up  with  a  loud  report.  I've  narrated 
special  of  the  scope  and  range  of  this  'ere 
Blacklock,  so  as  you'll  understand  why  it  was 
expedient  and  desirable  that  he  should  up  an1 
die.  You  see,  he  always  managed,  with  all  his 
killings  and  robbings  and  general  and  sundry 
flimflamming,  to  be  just  within  the  law.  And 
if  anybody  took  a  notion  to  shoot  him  up,  why, 
his  luck  saw  him  through,  and  the  other  man's 
shooting-iron  missed  fire,  or  exploded,  01 
threw  wild,  or  such  like,  till  it  seemed  as  if  he 
sure  did  bear  a  charmed  life ;  and  so  he  did  till  a 
pore  yeller  tamale  of  a  fool  dog  did  for  him 
what  the  law  of  the  land  couldn't  do.  Yes, 
sir,  a  fool  dog,  a  pup,  a  blame  yeller  pup  named 
Sloppy  Weather,  did  for  Cock-eye  Blacklock, 


The  Passing  of  Cock-eye  Blacklock       89 

sporting  character,  three-card-monte  man,  sure- 
thing  sharp,  killer,  and  general  bedeviler. 

' '  You  see,  it  was  this  way.  Over  in  American 
Canon,  some  five  miles  maybe  back  of  the  mine, 
they  was  a  creek  called  the  American  River, 
and  it  was  sure  chock-a-block  full  of  trouts. 
The  Boss  used  for  to  go  over  there  with  a  dinky 
fish-pole  like  a  buggy -whip  about  once  a  week, 
and  scout  that  stream  for  fish  and  bring  back  a 
basketful.  He  was  sure  keen  on  it,  and  had 
bought  some  kind  of  privilege  or  other,  so  as 
he  could  keep  other  people  off. 

"Well,  I  used  to  go  along  with  him  to  pack 
the  truck,  and  one  Saturday,  about  a  month 
after  Cock-eye  had  been  run  outen  camp,  we 
hiked  up  over  the  divide,  and  went  for  to  round 
up  a  bunch  o'  trouts.  When  we  got  to  the 
river  there  was  a  mess  for  your  life.  Say, 
that  river  was  full  of  dead  trouts,  floating  atop 
the  water ;  and  they  was  some  even  on  the  bank. 
Not  a  scratch  on  'em ;  just  dead.  The  Boss  had 
the  papsy-lals.  I  never  did  see  a  man  so 
rip-r'aring,  snorting  mad.  7  hadn't  a  guess 
about  what  we  were  up  against,  but  he  knew, 
and  he  showed  down.  He  said  somebody  had 
been  shooting  the  river  for  fish  to  sell  down 
Sacramento  way  to  the  market.  A  mean 
trick;  kill  more  fish  in  one  shoot  than  you 
can  possibly  pack. 


go  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

"  Well,  we  didn't  do  much  fishing  that  day— 
couldn't  get  a  bite,  for  that  matter — and  took 
off  home  about  noon  to  talk  it  over.  You  see, 
the  Boss,  in  buying  the  privileges  or  such  for 
that  creek,  had  made  himself  responsible  to  the 
Fish  Commissioners  of  the  State,  and  'twasn't  a 
week  before  they  were  after  him,  camping  on 
his  trail  incessant,  and  wanting  to  know  how 
about  it.  The  Boss  was  some  worried,  because 
the  fish  were  being  killed  right  along,  and  the 
Commission  was  making  him  weary  of  living. 
Twicet  afterward  we  prospected  along  that 
river  and  found  the  same  lot  of  dead  fish.  We 
even  put  a  guard  there,  but  it  didn't  do  no 
manner  of  good. 

"It's  the  Boss  who  first  suspicions  Cock-eye. 
But  it  don't  take  no  seventh  daughter  of  no 
seventh  daughter  to  trace  trouble  where  Black- 
lock's  about.  He  sudden  shows  up  in  town 
with  a  bunch  of  simoleons,  buying  bacon  and 
tin  cows*  and  such  provender,  and  generally 
giving  it  away  that  he's  come  into  money. 
The  Boss,  who's  watching  his  movements 
sharp,  says  to  me  one  day : 

"'Bunt,  the  storm-centre  of  this  here  low 
area  is  a  man  with  a  cock-eye,  an'  I'll  back 
that  play  with  a  paint  horse  against  a  paper 
dime.' 

*  Condensed  milk. 


The    Passing    of    Cock-eye    Blacklock     91 

"'No  takers,'  says  I.  'Dirty  work  and  a 
cock-eyed  man  are  two  heels  of  the  same  mule/ 

"  '  Which  it's  a-kicking  of  me  in  the  stummick 
frequent  and  painful,'  he  remarks,  plenty 
wrathful. 

"  'On  general  principles,'  I  said,  'it's  a  royal 
flush  to  a  pair  of  deuces  as  how  this  Blacklock 
bird  ought  to  stop  a  heap  of  lead,  and  I  know 
the  man  to  throw  it.  He's  the  only  brother  of 
my  sister,  and  tends  chuck  in  a  placer  mine. 
How  about  if  I  take  a  day  off  and  drop  round 
to  his  cabin  and  interview  him  on  the  fleetin' 
and  unstable  nature  of  human  life  ?' 

"  But  the  Boss  wouldn't  hear  of  that. 

"'No,'  says  he;  'that's  not  the  bluff  to  back 
in  this  game.  You  an'  me  an'  Mary-go-round' 
— that  was  what  we  called  the  marshal,  him 
being  so  much  all  over  the  country — 'you  an' 
me  an'  Mary-go-round  will  have  to  stock  a 
sure-thing  deck  against  that  maverick.' 

"So  the  three  of  us  gets  together  an'  has  a 
talky-talk,  an'  we  lays  it  out  as  how  Cock-eye 
must  be  watched  and  caught  red-handed. 

"Well,  let  me  tell  you,  keeping  case  on  that 
Greaser  sure  did  lack  a  certain  indefinable 
charm.  We  tried  him  at  sun-up,  an'  again  at 
sundown,  an'  nights,  too,  laying  in  the  chaparral 
an'  tarweed,  an'  scouting  up  an'  down  that 
blame  river,  till  we  were  sore.  We  built 


92  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

surreptitious  a  lot  of  shooting-boxes  up  in  trees 
on  the  far  side  of  the  canon,  overlooking  certain 
an'  sundry  pools  in  the  river  where  Cock-eye 
would  be  likely  to  pursue  operations,  an'  we 
took  turns  watching.  I'll  be  a  Chink  if  that 
bad  egg  didn't  put  it  on  us  same  as  previous, 
an'  we'd  find  new-killed  fish  all  the  time.  I 
tell  you  we  were  flickered;  and  it  got  on  the 
Boss's  nerves.  The  Commission  began  to  talk 
of  withdrawing  the  privilege,  an'  it  was  up 
to  him  to  make  good  or  pass  the  deal.  We 
knew  Blacklock  was  shooting  the  river,  y'  see, 
but  we  didn't  have  no  evidence.  Y'  see,  being 
shut  off  from  card-sharping,  he  was  up  against 
it,  and  so  took  to  pot-hunting  to  get  along. 
It  was  as  plain  as  red  paint. 

"Well,  things  went  along  sort  of  catch-as- 
catch-can  like  this  for  maybe  three  weeks,  the 
Greaser  shooting  fish  regular,  an'  the  Boss 
b'iling  with  rage,  and  laying  plans  to  call  his 
hand,  and  getting  bluffed  out  every  deal. 

"And  right  here  I  got  to  interrupt,  to  talk 
some  about  the  pup  dog,  Sloppy  Weather.  If 
he  hadn't  got  caught  up  into  this  Blacklock 
game,  no  one'd  ever  thought  enough  about  him 
to  so  much  as  kick  him.  But  after  it  was  all 
over,  we  began  to  remember  this  same  Sloppy 
an'  to  recall  what  he  was ;  no  big  job.  He  was 
just  a  worthless  fool  pup,  yeller  at  that,  every- 


The  Passing  of  Cock-eye  Blacklock       93 

body's  dog,  that  just  hung  round  camp,  grin 
ning  and  giggling  and  playing  the  goat,  as  half- 
grown  dogs  will.  He  used  to  go  along  with  the 
car-boys  when  they  went  swimmin'  in  the 
resevoy,  an'  dash  along  in  an'  yell  an'  splash 
round  just  to  show  off.  He  thought  it  was  a 
keen  stunt  to  get  some  gesabe  to  throw  a  stick 
in  the  resevoy  so's  he  could  paddle  out  after  it. 
They'd  trained  him  always  to  bring  it  back 
an'  fetch  it  to  whichever  party  throwed  it. 
He'd  give  it  up  when  he'd  retrieved  it,  an'  yell 
to  have  it  throwed  again.  That  was  his  idea 
of  fun — just  like  a  fool  pup. 

"Well,  one  day  this  Sloppy  Weather  is  off 
chasing  jack-rabbits  an'  don't  come  home. 
Nobody  thinks  anything  about  that,  nor  even 
notices  it.  But  we  afterward  finds  out  that 
he'd  met  up  with  Blacklock  that  day,  an* 
stopped  to  visit  with  him — sorry  day  for  Cock 
eye.  Now  it  was  the  very  next  day  after  this 
that  Mary-go-round  an'  the  Boss  plans  another 
scout.  I'm  to  go,  too.  It  was  a  Wednesday, 
an'  we  lay  it  out  that  the  Cockeye  would 
prob'ly  shoot  that  day  so's  to  get  his  fish  down 
to  the  railroad  Thursday,  so  they'd  reach 
Sacramento  Friday — fish  day,  see.  It  wasn't 
much  to  go  by,  but  it  was  the  high  card  in  our 
hand,  an'  we  allowed  to  draw  to  it. 

"We    left    Why-not    afore    daybreak,    an' 


94  '-A  Deal  in  Wheat 

worked  over  into  the  canon  about  sun-up. 
They  was  one  big  pool  we  hadn't  covered  for 
some  time,  an'  we  made  out  we'd  watch  that. 
So  we  worked  down  to  it,  an'  dumb  up  into  our 
trees,  an'  set  out  to  keep  guard. 

"In  about  an  hour  we  heard  a  shoot  some 
mile  or  so  up  the  creek.  They's  no  mistaking 
dynamite,  leastways  not  to  miners,  an'  we 
knew  that  shoot  was  dynamite  an'  nothing 
else.  The  Cock-eye  was  at  work,  an'  we  shook 
hands  all  round.  Then  pretty  soon  a  fish  or 
so  began  to  go  by — big  fellows,  some  of  'em, 
dead  an'  floatin',  with  their  eyes  popped  'way 
out  same  as  knobs — sure  sign  they'd  been  shot. 

"The  Boss  took  and  grit  his  teeth  when  he 
see  a  three-pounder  go  by,  an'  made  remarks 
about  Blacklock. 

'  'Sh !'    says    Mary-go-round,    sudden-like. 
'Listen !' 

"  We  turned  ear  down  the  wind,  an'  sure  there 
was  the  sound  of  some  one  scrabbling  along 
the  boulders  by  the  riverside.  Then  we  heard 
a  pup  yap. 

'That's  our  man,'  whispers  the  Boss. 

"For  a  long  time  we  thought  Cock-eye  had 
quit  for  the  day  an'  had  coppered  us  again, 
but  byne-by  we  heard  the  manzanita  crack  on 
the  far  side  the  canon,  an'  there  at  last  we  see 
Blacklock  working  down  toward  the  pool, 


- 
The  Passing  of  Cock-vfe  Blacklock       95 

Sloppy   Weather   following   an'    yapping   and 
cayoodling  just  as  a  fool  dog  will. 

"Blacklock  comes  down  to  the  edge  of  the 
water  quiet-like.  He  lays  his  big  scoop-net 
an*  his  sack — we  can  see  it  half  full  already- 
down  behind  a  boulder,  and  takes  a  good 
squinting  look  all  round,  and  listens  maybe 
twenty  minutes,  he's  that  cute,  same's  a  coyote 
stealing  sheep.  We  lies  low  an'  says  nothing, 
fear  he  might  see  the  leaves  move. 

"Then  byne-by  he  takes  his  stick  of  dyna 
mite  out  his  hip  pocket — he  was  just  that 
reckless  kind  to  carry  it  that  way — an'  ties  it 
careful  to  a  couple  of  stones  he  finds  handy. 
Then  he  lights  the  fuse  an'  heaves  her  into  the 
drink,  an'  just  there's  where  Cock-eye  makes 
the  mistake  of  his  life.  He  ain't  tied  the  rocks 
tight  enough,  an'  the  loop  slips  off  just  as  he 
swings  back  his  arm,  the  stones  drop  straight 
down  by  his  feet,  and  the  stick  of  dynamite 
whirls  out  right  enough  into  the  pool. 

"  Then  the  funny  business  begins. 

"Blacklock  ain't  made  no  note  of  Sloppy 
Weather,  who's  been  sizing  up  the  whole  game 
an'  watchin'  for  the  stick.  Soon  as  Cock-eye 
heaves  the  dynamite  into  the  water,  off  goes 
the  pup  after  it,  just  as  he'd  been  taught  to  do 
by  the  car-boys. 

"  '  Hey,  you  fool  dog  ! '  yells  Blacklock. 


96  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

"A  lot  that  pup  cares.  He  heads  out  for 
that  stick  of  dynamite  same  as  if  for  a  veal 
cutlet,  reaches  it,  grabs  hold  of  it,  an'  starts 
back  for  shore,  with  the  fuse  sputterin'  like  hot 
grease.  Blacklock  heaves  rocks  at  him  like 
one  possessed,  capering  an'  dancing;  but  the 
pup  comes  right  on.  The  Cock-eye  can't  stand 
it  no  longer,  but  lines  out.  But  the  pup's  got 
to  shore  an'  takes  after  him.  Sure;  why  not? 
He  think' s  it's  all  part  of  the  game.  Takes 
after  Cock-eye,  running  to  beat  a'  express, 
while  we-all  whoops  and  yells  an'  nearly  falls 
out  the  trees  for  laffing.  Hi !  Cock-eye  did 
scratch  gravel  for  sure.  But  't ain't  no  manner 
of  use.  He  can't  run  through  that  rough 
ground  like  Sloppy  Weather,  an'  that  fool  pup 
comes  a-cavartin'  along,  jumpin'  up  against 
him,  an'  him  a-kickin'  him  away,  an'  r'arin',  an' 
dancin',  an'  shakin'  his  fists,  an'  the  more  he 
r'ars  the  more  fun  the  pup  thinks  it  is.  But 
all  at  once  something  big  happens,  an'  the 
whole  bank  of  the  canon  opens  out  like  a  big 
wave,  and  slops  over  into  the  pool,  an'  the  air 
is  full  of  trees  an'  rocks  and  cart-loads  of  dirt 
an'  dogs  and  Blacklocks  and  rivers  an'  smoke 
an'  fire  generally.  The  Boss  got  a  clod  o' 
river-mud  spang  in  the  eye,  an'  went  off  his 
limb  like's  he  was  trying  to  bust  a  bucking 
bronc'  an'  couldn't ;  and  ol'  Mary-go-round  was 


The  Passing  of  Cock-eye  Blacklock       97 

shooting  off  his  gun  on  general  principles, 
glarin'  round  wild-eyed  an'  like  as  if  he  saw  a' 
Injun  devil. 

"When  the  smoke  had  cleared  away  an' 
the  trees  and  rocks  quit  falling,  we  dumb  down 
from  our  places  an'  started  in  to  look  for  Black- 
lock.  We  found  a  good  deal  of  him,  but  they 
wasn't  hide  nor  hair  left  of  Sloppy  Weather. 
We  didn't  have  to  dig  no  grave,  either.  They 
was  a  big  enough  hole  in  the  ground  to  bury 
a  horse  an'  wagon,  let  alone  Cock-eye.  So 
we  planted  him  there,  an'  put  up  a  board,  an' 
wrote  on  it: 

Here  lies  most 

of 

C.  BLACKLOCK, 

who  died  of  a' 

entangling  alliance  with 

a 
stick  of  dynamite. 

Moral:  A  hook  and  line  is  good  enough 
fish-tackle  for  any  honest  man. 

"That  there  board  lasted  for  two  years,  till 
the  freshet  of  '82,  when  the  American  River— 
HeUo,  there's  the  sun!" 

All  in  a  minute  the  night  seemed  to  have 
closed  up  like  a  great  book.  The  East  flamed 
roseate.  The  air  was  cold,  nimble.  Some  of 
the  sage-brush  bore  a  thin  rim  of  frost.  The 
herd,  aroused,  the  dew  glistening  on  flank  and 
horn,  were  chewing  the  first  cud  of  the  day, 


98  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

and  in  twos  and  threes  moving  toward  the 
water-hole  for  the  morning's  drink.  Far  off 
toward  the  camp  the  breakfast  fire  sent  a  shaft 
of  blue  smoke  straight  into  the  moveless  air. 
A  jack-rabbit,  with  erect  ears,  limped  from  the 
sage-brush  just  out  of  pistol-shot  and  regarded 
us  a  moment,  his  nose  wrinkling  and  trembling. 
By  the  time  that  Bunt  and  I,  putting  our 
ponies  to  a  canter,  had  pulled  up  by  the  camp 
of  the  Bar-circle-Z  outfit,  another  day  had 
begun  in  Idaho. 


A  MEMORANDUM  OF  SUDDEN 
DEATH 


A  MEMORANDUM    OF    SUDDEN   DEATH 


manuscript  of  the  account  that 
follows  belongs  to  a  harness-maker  in 
Albuquerque,  Juan  Tejada  by  name,  and  he  is 
welcome  to  whatever  of  advertisement  this 
notice  may  bring  him.  He  is  a  good  fellow, 
and  his  patented  martingale  for  stage  horses 
may  be  recommended.  I  understand  he  got 
the  manuscript  from  a  man  named  Bass,  or 
possibly  Bass  left  it  with  him  for  safe-keeping. 
I  know  that  Tejada  has  some  things  of  Bass's 
now  —  things  that  Bass  left  with  him  last 
November:  a  mess-kit,  a  lantern  and  a  broken 
theodolite  —  a  whole  saddle-box  full  of  con 
traptions.  I  forgot  to  ask  Tejada  how  Bass 
got  the  manuscript,  and  I  wish  I  had  done  so 
now,  for  the  finding  of  it  might  be  a  story  itself. 
The  probabilities  are  that  Bass  simply  picked 
it  up  page  by  page  off  the  desert,  blown  about 
the  spot  where  the  fight  occurred  and  at  some 
little  distance  from  the  bodies.  Bass,  I  am 
told,  is  a  bone-gatherer  by  profession,  and  one 
can  easily  understand  how  he  would  come 
across  the  scene  of  the  encounter  in  one  of  his 
tours  into  western  Arizona.  My  interest  in 
101 


io2  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

x  the  affair  is  impersonal,  but  none  the  less  keen. 
Though  I  did  not  know  young  Kar slake,  I 
knew  his  stuff — as  everybody  still  does,  when 
you  come  to  that.  For  the  matter  of  that, 
the  mere  mention  of  his  pen-name,  "Anson 
Qualtraugh, "  recalls  at  once  to  thousands  of 
the  readers  of  a  certain  world-famous  monthly 
magazine  of  New  York  articles  and  stories  he 
wrote  for  it  while  he  was  alive ;  as,  for  instance, 
his  admirable  descriptive  work  called  "Traces 
of  the  Aztecs  on  the  Mogolon  Mesa,"  in  the 
October  number  of  1890,  Also,  in  the  January 
issue  of  1892  there  are  two  specimens  of  his 
work,  one  signed  Anson  Qualtraugh  and  the 
other  Justin  Blisset.  Why  he  should  have 
used  the  Blisset  signature  I  do  not  know.  It 
occurs  only  this  once  in  all  his  writings.  In 
this  case  it  is  signed  to  a  very  indifferent  New 
Year's  story.  The  Qualtraugh  "stuff"  of  the 
same  number  is,  so  the  editor  writes  to  me, 
a  much  shortened  transcript  of  a  monograph 
on  "Primitive  Methods  of  Moki  Irrigation, " 
which  are  now  in  the  archives  of  the  Smith 
sonian.  The  admirable  novel,  "The  Peculiar 
Treasure  of  Kings,"  is  of  course  well  known. 
Kar  slake  wrote  it  in  1888-89,  and  the  contro 
versy  that  arose  about  the  incident  of  the 
third  chapter  is  still — sporadically  and  inter 
mittently — continued . 


A  Memorandum  of  Sudden  Death      103 

The  manuscript  that  follows  now  appears, 
of  course,  for  the  first  time  in  print,  and  I 
acknowledge  herewith  my  obligations  to  Kars 
lake' s  father,  Mr.  Patterson  Karslake,  for  per 
mission  to  publish. 

I  have  set  the  account  down  word  for  word, 
with  all  the  hiatuses  and  breaks  that  by  nature 
of  the  extraordinary  circumstances  under  which 
it  was  written  were  bound  to  appear  in  it.  I 
have  allowed  it  to  end  precisely  as  Karslake 
was  forced  to  end  it,  in  the  middle  of  a  sentence. 
God  knows  the  real  end  is  plain  enough  and 
was  not  far  off  when  the  poor  fellow  began  the 
last  phrase  that  never  was  to  be  finished. 

The  value  of  the  thing  is  self-apparent. 
Besides  the  narrative  of  incidents  it  is  a  simple 
setting  forth  of  a  young  man's  emotions  in  the 
very  face  of  violent  death.  You  will  remember 
the  distinguished  victim  of  the  guillotine,  a 
lady  who  on  the  scaffold  begged  that  she  might 
be  permitted  to  write  out  the  great  thoughts 
that  began  to  throng  her  mind.  She  was  not 
allowed  to  do  so,  and  the  record  is  lost.  Here 
is  a  case  where  the  record  is  preserved.  But 
Karslake,  being  a  young  man  not  very  much 
given  to  introspection,  his  work  is  more  a 
picture  of  things  seen  than  a  transcription  of 
things  thought.  However,  one  may  read 
between  the  lines ;  the  very  breaks  are  eloquent, 


104  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

while  the  break  at  the  end  speaks  with  a  signifi 
cance  that  no  words  could  attain. 

The  manuscript  in  itself  is  interesting.  It 
is  written  partly  in  pencil,  partly  in  ink  (no 
doubt. from  a  fountain  pen),  on  sheets  of  manila 
paper  torn  from  some  sort  of  long  and  narrow 
account-book.  In  two  or  three  places  there 
are  smudges  where  the  powder-blackened  finger 
and  thumb  held  the  sheets  momentarily.  I 
would  give  much  to  own  it,  but  Tejada  will 
not  give  it  up  without  Bass's  permission,  and 
Bass  has  gone  to  the  Klondike. 

As  to  Karslake  himself.  He  was  born  in 
Raleigh,  in  North  Carolina,  in  1868,  studied 
law  at  the  State  University,  and  went  to  the 
Bahamas  in  1885  with  the  members  of  a  govern 
ment  coast  survey  commission.  Gave  up  the 
practice  of  law  and  ''went  in"  for  fiction  and 
the  study  of  the  ethnology  of  North  America 
about  1887.  He  was  unmarried. 

The  reasons  for  his  enlisting  have  long  been 
misunderstood.  It  was  known  that  at  the 
time  of  his  death  he  was  a  member  of  B  Troop 
of  the  Sixth  Regiment  of  United  States  Cavalry, 
and  it  was  assumed  that  because  of  this  fact 
Karslake  was  in  financial  difficulties  and  not 
upon  good  terms  with  his  family.  All  this,  of 
course,  is  untrue,  and  I  have  every  reason  to 
believe  that  Karslake  at  this  time  was  planning 


A  Memorandum  of  Sudden  Death      105 

a  novel  of  military  life  in  the  Southwest,  and, 
wishing  to  get  in  closer  touch  with  the  milieu 
of  the  story,  actually  enlisted  in  order  to  be 
able  to  write  authoritatively.  He  saw  no 
active  service  until  the  time  when  his  narrative 
begins.  The  year  of  his  death  is  uncertain. 
It  was  in  the  spring  probably  of  1896,  in  the 
twenty-eighth  year  of  his  age. 

There  is  no  doubt  he  would  have  become  in 
time  a  great  writer.  A  young  man  of  twenty- 
eight  who  had  so  lively  a  sense  of  the  value  of 
accurate  observation,  and  so  eager  a  desire  to 
produce  that  in  the  very  face  of  death  he  could 
faithfully  set  down  a  description  of  his  sur 
roundings,  actually  laying  down  the  rifle  to 
pick  up  the  pen,  certainly  was  possessed  of 
extraordinary  faculties. 

"They  came  in  sight  early  this  morning  just 
after  we  had  had  breakfast  and  had  broken 
camp.  The  four  of  us — 'Bunt,'  'Idaho/ 
Estorijo  and  myself — were  jogging  on  to 
the  southward  and  had  just  come  up 
out  of  the  dry  bed  of  some  water-hole — the 
alkali  was  white  as  snow  in  the  crevices 
—when  Idaho  pointed  them  out  to  us, 
three  to  the  rear,  two  on  one  side,  one 
on  the  other  and — very  far  away — two  ahead. 
Five  minutes  before,  the  desert  was  as  empty 


io6  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

as  the  flat  of  my  hand.  They  seemed  literally 
to  have  grown  out  of  the  sage-brush.  We  took 
them  in  through  my  field-glasses  and  Bunt 
made  sure  they  were  an  outlying  band  of  Hunt- 
in-the-Morning's  Bucks.  I  had  thought,  and 
so  had  all  of  us,  that  the  rest  of  the  boys  had 
rounded  up  the  whole  of  the  old  man's  hostiles 
long  since.  We  are  at  a  loss  to  account  for 
these  fellows  here.  They  seem  to  be  well 
mounted. 

"We  held  a  council  of  war  from  the  saddle 
without  halting,  but  there  seemed  very  little 
to  be  done — but  to  go  right  along  and  wait  for 
developments.  At  about  eleven  we  found 
water — just  a  pocket  in  the  bed  of  a  dried 
stream — and  stopped  to  water  the  ponies.  I 
am  writing  this  during  the  halt. 

"We  have  one  hundred  and  sixteen  rifle 
cartridges.  Yesterday  was  Friday,  and  all 
day,  as  the  newspapers  say,  'the  situation 
remained  unchanged.'  We  expected  surely 
that  the  night  would  see  some  rather  radical 
change,  but  nothing  happened,  though  we 
stood  watch  and  watch  till  morning.  Of  yes 
terday's  eight  only  six  are  in  sight  and  we 
bring  up  reserves.  We  now  have  two  to  the 
front,  one  on  each  side,  and  two  to  the  rear,  all 
far  out  of  rifle-range. 

[The  following  paragraph  is  in   an   unsteady 


A  Memorandum  of  Sudden  Death      107 

script  and  would  appear  to  have  been  written 
in  the  saddle.  The  same  peculiarity  occurs 
from  time  to  time  in  the  narrative,  and  occasion 
ally  the  writing  is  so  broken  as  to  be  illegible.} 

"On  again  after  breakfast.  It  is  about 
eight-fifteen.  The  other  two  have  come  back- 
without 'reserves,'  thank  God.  Very  possibly 
they  did  not  go  away  at  all,  but  were  hidden 
by  a  dip  in  the  ground.  I  cannot  see  that  any 
of  them  are  nearer.  I  have  watched  one  to  the 
left  of  us  steadily  for  more  than  half  an 
hour  and  I  am  sure  that  he  has  not  shortened 
the  distance  between  himself  and  us. 
What  their  plans  are  Hell  only  knows,  but 
this  silent,  persistent  escorting  tells  on 
the  nerves.  I  do  not  think  I  am  af raid- 
as  yet.  It  does  not  seem  possible  but  that 
we  will  ride  into  La  Paz  at  the  end  of  the 
fortnight  exactly  as  we  had  planned,  meet 
Greenock  according  to  arrangements  and  take 
the  stage  on  to  the  railroad.  Then  next  month 
I  shall  be  in  San  Antonio  and  report  at  head 
quarters.  Of  course,  all  this  is  to  be,  of  course  ; 
and  this  business  of  to-day  will  make  a  good 
story  to  tell.  It's  an  experience — good  'ma 
terial.'  Very  naturally  I  cannot  now  see  how  I 
am  going  to  get  out  of  this"  [the  word  "alive" 
has  here  been  erased], ' '  but  of  course  I  will.  Why 
'of  course'  ?  I  don't  know.  Maybe  I  am  try- 


io8  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

ing  to  deceive  myself.  Frankly,  it  looks  like  a 
situation  insoluble ;  but  the  solution  will  surely 
come  right  enough  in  good  time. 

"  Eleven  o'clock. — No  change. 

"  Two-thirty  p.  M. — We  are  halted  to  tighten 
girths  and  to  take  a  single  swallow  of  the  can 
teens.  One  of  them  rode  in  a  wide  circle  from 
the  rear  to  the  flank,  about  ten  minutes  ago, 
conferred  a  moment  with  his  fellow,  then  fell 
back  to  his  old  position.  He  wears  some  sort 
of  red  cloth  or  blanket.  We  reach  no  more 
water  till  day  after  to-morrow.  But  we  have 
sufficient.  Estorijo  has  been  telling  funny 
stories  en  route. 

"Four  o'clock  p.  M. — They  have  closed  up 
perceptibly,  and  we  have  been  debating  about 
trying  one  of  them  with  Idaho's  Winchester. 
No  use;  better  save  the  ammunition.  It 
looks  .  .  ."  [the  next  words  are  undecipher 
able,  but  from  the  context  they  would  appear  to  be 
"  as  if  they  would  attack  to-night"]  "  .  .  .  we 
have  come  to  know  certain  of  them  now  by 
nicknames.  We  speak  of  the  Red  One,  or  the 
Little  One,  or  the  One  with  the  Feather,  and 
Idaho  has  named  a  short  thickset  fellow  on 
our  right  'Little  Willie. '  By  God,  I  wish  some 
thing  would  turn  up — relief  or  fight.  I  don't 
care  which.  How  Estorijo  can  cackle  on, 
reeling  off  his  senseless,  pointless  funny  stories, 


A  Memorandum  of  Sudden  Death      109 

is  beyond  me.  Bunt  is  almost  as  bad.  They 
understand  the  fix  we  are  in,  I  know,  but  how 
they  can  take  it  so  easily  is  the  staggering  sur 
prise.  I  feel  that  I  am  as  courageous  as  either 
of  them,  but  levity  seems  horribly  inappropriate. 
I  could  kill  Estorijo  joyfully. 

"Sunday  morning. — Still  no  developments. 
We  were  so  sure  of  something  turning  up  last 
night  that  none  of  us  pretended  to  sleep.  But 
nothing  stirred.  There  is  no  sneaking  out  of 
the  circle  at  night.  The  moon  is  ^  full.  A 
jack-rabbit  could  not  have  slipped  by  them 
unseen  last  night. 

"  Nine  o'clock  (in  the  saddle). — We  had  coffee 
and  bacon  as  usual  at  sunrise ;  then  on  again  to 
the  southeast  just  as  before.  For  half  an  hour 
after  starting  the  Red  One  and  two  others  were 
well  within  rifle-shot,  nearer  than  ever  before. 
They  had  worked  in  from  the  flank.  But  before 
Idaho  could  get  a  chance  at  them  they  dipped 
into  a  shallow  arroyo,  and  when  they  came  out 
on  the  other  side  were  too  far  away  to  think 
of  shooting. 

"Ten  o'clock. — All  at  once  we  find  there  are 
nine  instead  of  eight ;  where  and  when  this  last 
one  joined  the  band  we  cannot  tell.  He  wears 
a  sombrero  and  army  trousers,  but  the  upper 
part  of  his  body  is  bare.  Idaho  calls  him  'Half- 
and-half.'  He  is  riding  a—  They're  coming. 


no  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

"Later. — For  a  moment  we  thought  it  was 
the  long-expected  rush.  The  Red  One — he  had 
been  in  the  front — wheeled  quick  as  a  flash 
and  came  straight  for  us,  and  the  others  followed 
suit.  Great  Heavens,  how  they  rode !  We 
could  hear  them  yelling  on  every  side  of  us. 
We  jumped  off  our  ponies  and  stood  behind 
them,  the  rifles  across  the  saddles.  But  at 
four  hundred  yards  they  all  pivoted  about  and 
cantered  off  again  leisurely.  Now  they  fol 
lowed  us  as  before — three  in  the  front,  two  in 
the  rear  and  two  on  either  side.  I  do  not  think 
I  am  going  to  be  frightened  when  the  rush  does 
come.  I  watched  myself  just  now.  I  was 
excited,  and  I  remember  Bunt  saying  to  me, 
'Keep  your  shirt  on,  m'son' ;  but  I  was  not 
afraid  of  being  killed.  Thank  God  for  that ! 
It  is  something  I've  long  wished  to  find  out, 
and  now  that  I  know  it  I  am  proud  of  it. 
Neither  side  fired  a  shot.  I  was  not  afraid. 
It's  glorious.  Estorijo  is  all  right. 

"  Sunday  afternoon,  one-thirty. — No  change. 
It  is  unspeakably  hot. 

4 'Three-fifteen.— The  One  with  the  Feather 
is  walking,  leading  his  pony.  It  seems  to  be 
lame."  {With  this  entry  Kar slake  ended  page 
five,  and  the  next  page  of  the  manuscript  is 
numbered  seven.  It  is  very  probable,  however, 
that  he  made  a  mistake  in  the  numerical  sequence 


A  Memorandum  of  Sudden  Death      in 

of  his  pages,  for  the  narrative  is  continuous,  and, 
at  this  point  at  least,  unbroken.  There  does  not 
seem  to  be  any  sixth  page.} 

"  Four  o'clock. — Is  it  possible  that  we  are  to 
pass  another  night  of  suspense?  They  cer 
tainly  show  no  signs  of  bringing  on  the  crisis, 
and  they  surely  would  not  attempt  anything  so 
late  in  the  afternoon  as  this.  It  is  a  relief  to 
feel  that  we  have  nothing  to  fear  till  morning, 
but  the  tension  of  watching  all  night  long  is 
fearful. 

"Later. — Idaho  has  just  killed  the  Little 
One. 

"Later.— Still  firing. 

"Later.— Still  at  it. 

"Later,  about  five. — A  bullet  struck  within 
three  feet  of  me. 

"  Five-ten.— Still  firing. 

"Seven-thirty  p.  M.,  in  camp. — It  happened 
so  quickly  that  it  was  all  over  before  I  realized. 
We  had  our  first  interchange  of  shots  with  them 
late  this  afternoon.  The  Little  One  was  riding 
from  the  front  to  the  flank.  Evidently  he  did 
not  think  lie  was  in  range — nor  did  any  of  us. 
All  at  once  Idaho  tossed  up  his  rifle  and  let  go 
without  aiming — or  so  it  seemed  to  me.  The 
stock  was  not  at  his  shoulder  before  the  report 
came.  About  six  seconds  after  the  smoke  had 
cleared  away  we  could  see  the  Little  One  begin 


ii2  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

to  lean  backward  in  the  saddle,  and  Idaho  said 
grimly,  'I  guess  I  got  you.1  The  Little  One 
leaned  farther  and  farther  till  suddenly  his 
head  dropped  back  between  his  shoulder-blades. 
He  held  to  his  pony's  mane  with  both  hands  for 
a  long  time  and  then  all  at  once  went  off  feet 
first.  His  legs  bent  under  him  like  putty  as 
his  feet  touched  the  ground.  The  pony  bolted. 

"Just  as  soon  as  Idaho  fired  the  others 
closed  right  up  and  began  riding  around  us  at 
top  speed,  firing  as  they  went.  Their  aim  was 
bad  as  a  rule,  but  one  bullet  came  very  close 
to  me.  At  about  half -past  five  they  drew  off 
out  of  range  again  and  we  made  camp  right 
where  we  stood.  Estorijo  and  I  are  both  sure 
that  Idaho  hit  the  Red  One,  but  Idaho  himself 
is  doubtful,  and  Bunt  did  not  see  the  shot.  I 
could  swear  that  the  Red  One  all  but  went  off 
his  pony.  However,  he  seems  active  enough 
now. 

"  Monday  morning. — Still  another  night 
without  attack.  I  have  not  slept  since  Friday 
evening.  The  strain  is  terrific.  At  daybreak 
this  morning,  when  one  of  our  ponies  snorted 
suddenly,  I  cried  out  at  the  top  of  my  voice. 
I  could  no  more  have  repressed  it  than  I 
could  have  stopped  my  blood  flowing;  and 
for  half  an  hour  afterward  I  could  feel  my 
flesh  crisping  and  pringling,  and  there  was  a 


A  Memorandum  of  Sudden  Death      113 

sickening  weakness  at  the  pit  of  my  stomach. 
At  breakfast  I  had  to  force  down  my  coffee. 
They  are  still  in  place,  but  now  there  are 
two  on  each  side,  two  in  the  front,  two  in 
the  rear.  The  killing  of  the  Little  One  seems 
to  have  heartened  us  all  wonderfully.  I  am 
sure  we  will  get  out — somehow.  But  oh ! 
the  suspense  of  it. 

"Monday  morning,  nine-thirty. — Under  way 
for  over  two  hours.  There  is  no  new  develop 
ment.  But  Idaho  has  just  said  that  they  seem 
to  be  edging  in.  We  hope  to  reach  water 
to-day.  Our  supply  is  low,  and  the  ponies  are 
beginning  to  hang  their  heads.  It  promises 
to  be  a  blazing  hot  day.  There  is  alkali  all  to 
the  west  of  us,  and  we  just  commence  to  see 
the  rise  of  ground  miles  to  the  southward  that 
Idaho  says  is  the  San  Jacinto  Mountains. 
Plenty  of  water  there.  The  desert  hereabout 
is  vast  and  lonesome  beyond  words;  leagues 
of  sparse  sage-brush,  leagues  of  leper-white 
alkali,  leagues  of  baking  gray  sand,  empty, 
heat-ridden,  the  abomination  of  desola^on; 
and  always — in  whichever  direction  I  turn  my 
eyes — always,  in  the  midst  of  this  pale-yellow 
blur,  a  single  figure  in  the  distance,  blanketed, 
watchful,  solitary,  standing  out  sharp  and 
distinct  against  the  background  of  sage  and 
sand. 


ii4  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

"  Monday,  about  eleven  o'clock. — No  change. 
The  heat  is  appalling.  There  is  just  a— 

"Later. — I  was  on  the  point  of  saying  that 
there  was  just  a  mouthful  of  water  left  for  each 
of  us  in  our  canteens  when  Estorijo  and  Idaho 
both  at  the  same  time  cried  out  that  they  were 
moving  in.  It  is  true.  They  are  within  rifle 
range,  but  do  not  fire.  We,  as  well,  have 
decided  to  reserve  our  fire  until  something  more 
positive  happens. 

"Noon. — The  first  shot — for  to-day — from 
the  Red  One.  We  are  halted.  The  shot 
struck  low  and  to  the  left.  We  could  see  the 
sand  spout  up  in  a  cloud  just  as  though  a  bubble 
had  burst  on  the  surface  of  the  ground. 

"They  have  separated  from  each  other,  and 
the  whole  eight  of  them  are  now  in  a  circle 
around  us.  Idaho  believes  the  Red  One  fired 
as  a  signal.  Estorijo  is  getting  ready  to  take 
a  shot  at  the  One  with  the  Feather.  We  have 
the  ponies  in  a  circle  around  us.  It  looks  as  if 
now  at  last  this  was  the  beginning  of  the  real 
business. 

Later,  twelve-thirty-five. — Estorijo  missed. 
Idaho  will  try  with  the  Winchester  as  soon  as 
the  One  with  the  Feather  halts.  He  is  gallop 
ing  toward  the  Red  One. 

"All  at  once,  about  two  o'clock,  the  fighting 
began.  This  is  the  first  let-up.  It  is  now — 


A  Memorandum  of  Sudden  Death      115 

God  knows  what  time.  They  closed  up  sud 
denly  and  began  galloping  about  us  in  a  circle, 
firing  all  the  time.  They  rode  like  madmen. 
I  would  not  have  believed  that  Indian  ponies 
could  run  so  quickly.  What  with  their  yelling 
and  the  incessant  crack  of  their  rifles  and  the 
thud  of  their  ponies'  feet  our  horses  at  first 
became  very  restless,  and  at  last  Idaho's  mus 
tang  bolted  clean  away.  We  all  stood  to  it  as 
hard  as  we  could.  For  about  the  first  fifteen 
minutes  it  was  hot  work.  The  Spotted  One  is 
hit.  We  are  certain  of  that  much,  though  we 
do  not  know  whose  gun  did  the  work.  My 
poor  old  horse  is  bleeding  dreadfully  from  the 
mouth.  He  has  two  bullets  in  the  stomach, 
and  I  do  not  believe  he  can  stand  much  longer. 
They  have  let  up  for  the  last  few  moments, 
but  are  still  riding  around  us,  their  guns  at 
'ready.'  Every  now  and  then  one  of  us  fires, 
but  the  heat  shimmer  has  come  up  over  the 
ground  since  noon  and  the  range  is  extraordi 
narily  deceiving. 

"Three-ten. — Estorijo's  horse  is  down,  shot 
clean  through  the  head.  Mine  has  gone  long 
since.  We  have  made  a  rampart  of  the  bodies. 

"Three-twenty. — They  are  at  it  again,  tear 
ing  around  us  incredibly  fast,  every  now  and 
then  narrowing  the  circle.  The  bullets  are 
striking  everywhere  now.  I  have  no  rifle,  do 


n6  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

what  I  can  with  my  revolver,  and  try  to  watch 
what  is  going  on  in  front  of  me  and  warn  the 
others  when  they  press  in  too  close  on  my  side." 
[Karslake  nowhere  accounts  for  the  absence  of  his 
carbine.  That  a  U.  S.  trooper  should  be  without 
his  gun  while  traversing  a  hostile  country  is  a  fact 
difficult  to  account  for.] 

"  Three-thirty. — They  have  winged  me — 
through  the  shoulder.  Not  bad,  but  it  is 
bothersome.  I  sit  up  to  fire,  and  Bunt  gives 
me  his  knee  on  which  to  rest  my  right  arm. 
When  it  hangs  it  is  painful. 

"Quarter  to  four. — It  is  horrible;  Bunt  is 
dying.  He  cannot  speak,  the  ball  having  gone 
through  the  lower  part  of  his  face,  but  back, 
near  the  neck.  It  happened  through  his  trying 
to  catch  his  horse.  The  animal  was  struck  in 
the  breast  and  tried  to  bolt.  He  reared  up, 
backing  away,  and  as  we  had  to  keep  him  close 
to  us  to  serve  as  a  bulwark  Bunt  'followed  him 
out  from  the  little  circle  that  we  formed,  his 
gun  in  one  hand,  his  other  gripping  the  bridle. 
I  suppose  every  one  of  the  eight  fired  at  him 
simultaneously,  and  down  he  went.  The  pony 
dragged  him  a  little  ways  still  clutching  the 
bridle,  then  fell  itself,  its  whole  weight  rolling 
on  Bunt's  chest.  We  have  managed  to  get 
him  in  and  secure  his  rifle,  but  he  will  not  live. 
None  of  us  knows  him  very  well.  He  only 


A  Memorandum  of  Sudden  Death      117 

joined  us  about  a  week  ago,  but  we  all  liked  him 
from  the  start.  He  never  spoke  of  himself,  so 
we  cannot  tell  much  about  him.  Idaho  says 
he  has  a  wife  in  Torreon,  but  that  he  has  not 
lived  with  her  for  two  years;  they  did  not  get 
along  well  together,  it  seems.  This  is  the  first 
violent  death  I  have  ever  seen,  and  it  astonishes 
me  to  note  how  unimportant  it  seems.  How 
little  anybody  cares — after  all.  If  I  had  been 
told  of  his  death — the  details  of  it,  in  a  story 
or  in  the  form  of  fiction — it  is  easily  conceivable 
that  it  would  have  impressed  me  more  with  its 
importance  than  the  actual  scene  has  done. 
Possibly  my  mental  vision  is  scaled  to  a  larger 
field  since  Friday,  and  as  the  greater  issues 
loom  up  one  man  more  or  less  seems  to  be  but  a 
unit — more  or  less — in  an  eternal  series.  When 
he  was  hit  he  swung  back  against  the  horse, 
still  holding  by  the  rein.  His  feet  slid  from 
under  him,  and  he  cried  out,  'My  God?  just 
once.  We  divided  his  cartridges  between  us 
and  Idaho  passed  me  his  carbine.  The  barrel 
was  scorching  hot. 

"They  have  drawn  off  a  little  and  for  fifteen 
minutes,  though  they  still  circle  us  slowly,  there 
has  been  no  firing.  Forty  cartridges  left. 
Bunt's  body  (I  think  he  is  dead  now)  lies  just 
back  of  me,  and  already  the  gnats — I  can't 
speak  of  it." 


n8  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

[Karslake  evidently  made  the  next  few  entries 
at  successive  intervals  of  time,  but  neglected  in  his 
excitement  to  note  the  exact  hour  as  above.  We 
may  gather  that  "They"  made  another  attack 
and  then  repeated  the  assault  so  quickly  that  he  had 
no  chance  to  record  it  properly.  I  transcribe  the 
entries  in  exactly  the  disjointed  manner  in  which 
they  occur  in  the  original.  The  reference  to  the 
"fire"  is  unexplainable.] 

"  I  shall  do  my  best  to  set  down  exactly  what 
happened  and  what  I  do  and  think,  and  what  I 
see. 

"The  heat-shimmer  spoiled  my  aim,  but  I 
am  quite  sure  that  either 

"This  last  rush  was  the  nearest.  I  had 
started  to  say  that  though  the  heat-shimmer 
was  bad,  either  Estorijo  or  myself  wounded  one 
of  their  ponies.  We  saw  him  stumble. 

"Another  rush— 

' '  Our  ammunition 

"Only  a  few  cartridges  left. 

"The  Red  One  like  a  whirlwind  only  fifty 
yards  away 

"We  fire  separately  now  as  they  sneak  up 
under  cover  of  our  smoke. 

"We  put  the  fire  out.  Estorijo "  [It  is 

possible  that  Karslake  had  begun  here  to  chronicle 
the  death  of  the  Mexican.] 

"  I  have  killed  the  Spotted  One.     Just  as  he 


A  Memorandum  of  Sudden  Death      119 

wheeled  his  horse  I  saw  him  in  a  line  with  the 
rifle-sights  and  let  him  have  it  squarely.  It 
took  him  straight  in  the  breast.  I  could  feel 
that  shot  strike.  He  went  down  like  a  sack  of 
lead  weights.  By  God,  it  was  superb ! 

"  Later. — They  have  drawn  off  out  of  range 
again,  and  we  are  allowed  a  breathing-spell. 
Our  ponies  are  either  dead  or  dying,  and  we 
have  dragged  them  around  us  to  form  a  barri 
cade.  We  lie  on  the  ground  behind  the  bodies 
and  fire  over  them.  There  are  twenty-seven 
cartridges  left. 

"It  is  now  mid-afternoon.  Our  plan  is  to 
stand  them  off  if  we  can  till  night  and  then  to 
try  an  escape  between  them.  But  to  what 
purpose  ?  They  would  trail  us  so  soon  as  it  was 
light. 

"We  think  now  that  they  followed  us  without 
attacking  for  so  long  because  they  were  waiting 
till  the  lay  of  the  land  suited  them.  They 
wanted — no  doubt — an  absolutely  flat  piece  of 
country,  with  no  depressions,  no  hills  or  stream- 
beds  in  which  we  could  hide,  but  which  should 
be  high  upon  the  edges,  like  an  amphitheatre. 
They  would  get  us  in  the  centre  and  occupy 
the  rim  themselves.  Roughly,  this  is  the 
bit  of  desert  which  witnesses  our  'last  stand.' 
On  three  sides  the  ground  swells  a  very  little — 
the  rise  is  not  four  feet.  On  the  third  side  it 


120  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

is  open,  and  so  flat  that  even  lying  on  the  ground 
as  we  do  we  can  see  (leagues  away)  the  San 
Jacinto  hills — 'from  whence  cometh  no  help.' 
It  is  all  sand  and  sage,  forever  and  forever. 
Even  the  sage  is  sparse — a  bad  place  even  for  a 
coyote.  The  whole  is  flagellated  with  an  intol 
erable  heat  and — now  that  the  shooting  is 
relaxed — oppressed  with  a  benumbing,  sodden 
silence — the  silence  of  a  primordial  world. 
Such  a  silence  as  must  have  brooded  over  the 
Face  of  the  Waters  on  the  Eve  of  Creation — 
desolate,  desolate,  as  though  a  colossal,  invisible 
pillar — a  pillar  of  the  Infinitely  Still,  the  pillar 
of  Nirvana — rose  forever  into  the  empty  blue, 
human  life  an  atom  of  microscopic  dust  crushed 
under  its  basis,  and  at  the  summit  God  Himself. 
And  I  find  time  to  ask  myself  why,  at  this  of  all 
moments  of  my  tiny  life-span,  I  am  able  to 
write  as  I  do,  registering  impressions,  keeping  a 
finger  upon  the  pulse  of  the  spirit.  But  oh ! 
if  I  had  time  now — time  to  write  down  the 
great  thoughts  that  do  throng  the  brain. 
They  are  there,  I  feel  them,  know  them.  No 
doubt  the  supreme  exaltation  of  approaching 
death  is  the  stimulus  that  one  never  experi 
ences  in  the  humdrum  business  of  the  day- 
to-day  existence.  Such  mighty  thoughts ! 
Unintelligible,  but  if  I  had  time  I  could  spell 
them  out,  and  how  I  could  write  then!  I  feel 


A  ^Memorandum  of  Sudden  Death      121 

that  the  whole  secret  of  Life  is  within  my  reach ; 
I  can  almost  grasp  it ;  I  seem  to  feel  that  in  just 
another  instant  I  can  see  it  all  plainly,  as  the 
archangels  see  it  all  the  time,  as  the  great  minds 
of  the  world,  the  great  philosophers,  have  seen 
it  once  or  twice,  vaguely — a  glimpse  here  and 
there,  after  years  of  patient  study.  Seeing 
thus  I  should  be  the  equal  of  the  gods.  But  it 
is  not  meant  to  be.  There  is  a  sacrilege  in  it. 
I  almost  seem  to  understand  why  it  is  kept 
from  us.  But  the  very  reason  of  this  with 
holding  is  in  itself  a  part  of  the  secret.  If  I 
could  only,  only  set  it  down  ! — for  whose  eyes  ? 
Those  of  a  wandering  hawk?  God  knows. 
But  never  mind.  I  should  have  spoken — 
once;  should  have  said  the  great  Word  for 
which  the  World  since  the  evening  and  the 
morning  of  the  First  Day  has  listened.  God 
knows.  God  knows.  What  a  whirl  is  this? 
Monstrous  incongruity.  Philosophy  and  fight 
ing  troopers.  The  Infinite  and  dead  horses. 
There's  humour  for  you.  The  Sublime  takes 
off  its  hat  to  the  Ridiculous.  Send  a  cartridge 
clashing  into  the  breech  and  speculate  about 
the  Absolute.  Keep  one  eye  on  your  sights 
and  the  other  on  Cosmos.  Blow  the  reek  of 
burned  powder  from  before  you  so  you  may 
look  over  the  edge  of  the  abyss  of  the  Great 
Primal  Cause.  Duck  to  the  whistle  of  a  bullet 


122  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

and  commune  with  Schopenhauer.  Perhaps  I 
am  a  little  mad.  Perhaps  I  am  supremely 
intelligent.  But  in  either  case  I  am  not  under 
standable  to  myself.  How,  then,  be  under 
standable  to  others?  If  these  sheets  of  paper, 
this  incoherence,  is  ever  read,  the  others  will 
understand  it  about  as  much  as  the  investiga 
ting  hawk.  But  none  the  less  be  it  of  record 
that  I,  Karslake,  SAW.  It  reads  like  Revelations : 
'I,  John,  saw.'  It  is  just  that.  There  is  some 
thing  aj^oealyptic  in  it  all.  I  have  seen  a  vision, 
but  cannot— there  is  the  pitch  of  anguish  in 
the  impotence — bear  record.  If  time  were 
allowed  to  order  and  arrange  the  words  of  de 
scription,  this  exaltation  of  spirit,  in  that  very- 
space  of  time,  would  relax,  and  the  describer 
lapse  back  to  the  level  of  the  average  again 
before  he  could  set  down  the  things  he  saw, 
the  things  he  thought.  The  machinery  of  the 
mind  that  could  coin  the  great  Word  is  auto 
matic,  and  the  very  force  that  brings  the  die 
near  the  blank  metal  supplies  the  motor  power 
of  the  reaction  before  the  impression  is  made 
.  .  .  I  stopped  for  an  instant,  looking  up 
from  the  page,  and  at  once  the  great  vague 
panorama  faded.  I  lost  it  all.  Cosmos  has 
dwindled  again  to  an  amphitheatre  of  sage  and 
sand,  a  vista  of  distant  purple  hills,  the  shimmer 
of  scorching  alkali,  and  in  the  middle  distance 


A  Memorandum  of  Sudden  Death      123 

there,  those  figures,  blanketed,  beaded,  feath 
ered,  rifle  in  hand. 

"  But  for  a  moment  I  stood  on  Patmos. 

"The  Ridiculous  jostles  the  elbow  of  the 
Sublime  and  shoulders  it  from  place  as  Idaho 
announces  that  he  has  found  two  more  car 
tridges  in  Estorijo's  pockets. 

"They  rushed  again.  Eight  more  cartridges 
gone.  Twenty-one  left.  They  rush  in  this 
manner — at  first  the  circle,  rapid  beyond 
expression,  one  figure  succeeding  the  other 
so  swiftly  that  the  dizzied  vision  loses  count 
and  instead  of  seven  of  them  there  appear  to 
be  seventy.  Then  suddenly,  on  some  indis 
tinguishable  signal,  they  contract  this  circle, 
and  through  the  jets  of  powder-smoke  Idaho 
and  I  see  them  whirling  past  our  rifle-sights 
not  one  hundred  yards  away.  Then  their  fire 
suddenly  slackens,  the  smoke  drifts  by,  and 
we  see  them  in  the  distance  again,  moving 
about  us  at  a  slow  canter.  Then  the  blessed 
breathing-spell,  while  we  peer  out  to  know  if 
we  have  killed  or  not,  and  count  our  cartridges. 
We  have  laid  the  twenty-one  loaded  shells 
that  remain  in  a  row  between  us,  and  after  our 
first  glance  outward  to  see  if  any  of  them  are 
down,  our  next  is  inward  at  that  ever-shrinking 
line  of  brass  and  lead.  We  do  not  talk  much. 
This  is  the  end.  We  know  it  now.  All  of  a 


124  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

sudden  the  conviction  that  I  am  to  die  here  has 
hardened  within  me.  It  is,  all  at  once,  absurd 
that  I  should  ever  have  supposed  that  I  was  to 
reach  La  Paz,  take  the  east-bound  train  and 
report  at  San  Antonio.  It  seems  to  me  that  I 
knew,  weeks  ago,  that  our  trip  was  to  end  thus. 
I  knew  it — somehow — in  Sonora,  while  we 
were  waiting  orders,  and  I  tell  myself  that  if 
I  had  only  stopped  to  really  think  of  it  I  could 
have  foreseen  to-day's  bloody  business. 

"  Later. — The  Red  One  got  off  his  horse  and 
bound  up  the  creature's  leg.  One  of  us  hit  him, 
evidently.  A  little  higher,  it  would  have 
reached  the  heart.  Our  aim  is  ridiculously 
bad — the  heat-shimmer— 

"  Later. — Idaho  is  wounded.  This  last  time, 
for  a  moment,  I  was  sure  the  end  had  come. 
They  were  within  revolver  range  and  we  could 
feel  the  vibration  of  the  ground  under  their 
ponies'  hoofs.  But  suddenly  they  drew  off.  I 
have  looked  at  my  watch;  it  is  four  o'clock. 

"Four  o'clock. — Idaho's  wound  is  bad — a 
long,  raking  furrow  in  the  right  forearm.  I 
bind  it  up  for  him,  but  he  is  losing  a  great  deal 
of  blood  and  is  very  weak. 

"They  seem  to  know  that  we  are  only  two 
by  now,  for  with  each  rush  they  grow  bolder. 
The  slackening  of  our  fire  must  tell  them  how 
scant  is  our  ammunition. 


A   Memorandum  of  Sudden  Death      125 

"  Later. — This  last  was  magnificent.  The 
Red  One  and  one  other  with  lines  of  blue  paint 
across  his  cheek  galloped  right  at  us.  Idaho 
had  been  lying  with  his  head  and  shoulders 
propped  against  the  neck  of  his  dead  pony. 
His  eyes  were  shut,  and  I  thought  he  had 
fainted.  But  as  he  heard  them  coming  he 
struggled  up,  first  to  his  knees  and  then  to  his 
feet — to  his  full  height — dragging  his  revolver 
from  his  hip  with  his  left  hand.  The  whole 
right  arm  swung  useless.  '  He  was  so  weak 
that  he  could  only  lift  the  revolver  half  way- 
could  not  get  the  muzzle  up.  But  though  it 
sagged  and  dropped  in  his  grip,  he  would  die 
fighting.  When  he  fired  the  bullet  threw  up 
the  sand  not  a  yard  from  his  feet,  and  then  he 
fell  on  his  face  across  the  body  of  the  horse. 
During  the  charge  I  fired  as  fast  as  I  could,  but 
evidently  to  no  purpose.  They  must  have 
thought  that  Idaho  was  dead,  for  as  soon  as 
they  saw  him  getting  to  his  feet  they  sheered 
their  horses  off  and  wrent  by  on  either  side  of 
us.  I  have  made  Idaho  comfortable.  He  is 
unconscious ;  have  used  the  last  of  the  water  to 
give  him  a  drink.  He  does  not  seem— 

''They  continue  to  circle  us.  Their  fire  is 
incessant,  but  very  wild.  So  long  as  I  keep 
my  head  down  I  am  comparatively  safe. 

"Later. — I  think  Idaho  is  dying.     It  seems 


126  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

he  was  hit  a  second  time  when  he  stood  up  to 
fire.  Estorijo  is  still  breathing;  I  thought  him 
dead  long  since. 

"Four-ten. — Idaho  gone.  Twelve  cartridges 
left.  Am  all  alone  now. 

"Four-twenty-five. — I  am  very  weak." 
[Karslake  was  evidently  wounded  sometime  be 
tween  ten  and  twenty-five  minutes  after  four.  His 
notes  make  no  mention  of  ike  fact.}  "  Eight  car 
tridges  remain.  I  leave  my  library  to  my 
brother,  Walter  Patterson  Karslake;  all  my 
personal  effects  to  my  parents,  except  the 
picture  of  myself  taken  in  Baltimore  in  1897, 
which  I  direct  to  be  "  [the  next  lines  are  unde 
cipherable]  "...  at  Washington,  D.  C.,  as 
soon  as  possible.  I  appoint  as  my  literary 

"Four  forty-five. — Seven  cartridges.  Very 
weak  and  unable  to  move  lower  part  of  my 
body.  Am  in  no  pain.  They  rode  in  very 

close.  The  Red  One  is An  intolerable 

thirst 

"I  appoint  as  my  literary  executor  my 
brother,  Patterson  Karslake.  The  notes  on 
'Coronado  in  New  Mexico'  should  be  revised. 

"My  death  occurred  in  western  Arizona, 
April  1 5th,  at  the  hands  of  a  roving  band  of 
Hunt-in-the-Morning's  bucks.  They  have — 

"Five  o'clock. — The  last  cartridge  gone. 

"Estorijo  still  breathing.     I  cover  his  face 


A  Memorandum  of  Sudden  Death      127 

with  my  hat.  Their  fire  is  incessant.  Am 
much  weaker.  Convey  news  of  death  to 
Patterson  Karslake,  care  of  Corn  Exchange 
Bank,  New  York  City. 

"Five-fifteen — about. — They  have  ceased 
firing,  and  draw  together  in  a  bunch.  I  have 
four  cartridges  left ' '  [see  conflicting  note  dated 
five  o'clock],  "  but  am  extremely  weak.  Idaho 
was  the  best  friend  I  had  in  all  the  Southwest. 
I  wish  it  to  be  known  that  he  was  a  generous, 
open-hearted  fellow,  a  kindly  man,  clean  of 
speech,  and  absolutely  unselfish.  He  may  be 
known  as  follows:  Sandy  beard,  long  sandy 
hair,  scar  on  forehead,  about  six  feet  one  inch 
in  height.  His  real  name  is  James  Monroe 
Herndon;  his  profession  that  of  government 
scout.  Notify  Mrs.  Herndon,  Trinidad,  New 
Mexico. 

"The  writer  is  Arthur  Staples  Karslake, 
dark  hair,  height  five  feet  eleven,  body  will  be 
found  near  that  of  Herndon. 

"Luis  Estorijo,   Mexican— 

"Later. — Two  more  cartridges. 

"Five-thirty. — Estorijo  dead. 

"It  is  half -past  five  in  the  afternoon  of  April 
fifteenth.  They  followed  us  from  the  eleventh 
— Friday — till  to-day.  It  will 

[The  MS.  ends  here.] 


TWO   HEARTS  THAT  BEAT  AS 
ONE 


TWO  HEARTS  THAT  BEAT  AS  ONE 

TT  7HICH  I  puts  it  up  as  how  you  ain't 
never  heard  about  that  time  that 
Hardenberg  and  Strokher — the  Englisher — 
had  a  friendly  go  with  bare  knuckles — ten 
rounds  it  was — all  along  o'  a  feemale  woman?" 

It  is  a  small  world  and  I  had  just  found  out 
that  my  friend,  Bunt  McBride — horse-wrangler, 
miner,  faro-dealer  and  bone-gatherer — whose 
world  was  the  plains  and  ranges  of  the  Great 
Southwest,  was  known  of  the  Three  Black 
Crows,  Hardenberg,  Strokher  and  Ally  Bazan, 
and  had  even  foregathered  with  them  on  more 
than  one  of  their  ventures  for  Cyrus  Ryder's 
Exploitation  Agency — ventures  that  had  noth 
ing  of  the  desert  in  them,  but  that  involved  the 
sea,  and  the  schooner,  and  the  taste  of  the 
great-lunged  canorous  trades. 

"Ye  ain't  never  crossed  the  trail  o'  that 
mournful  history  ? ' ' 

I  professed  my  ignorance  and  said:         ^|  (I  I 

"They  fought?"    x 

"Mister  Man,"  returned  Bunt  soberly,  as 
one  broaching  a  subject  not  to  be  trifled  with, 
"They  sure  did.  Friendly-like,  y'know — like 


132  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

as  how  two  high-steppin',  sassy  gents  figures 
out  to  settle  any  little  strained  relations — 
friendly-like  but  considerable  keen. " 

He  took  a  pinch  of  tobacco  from  his  pouch 
and  a  bit  of  paper  and  rolled  a  cigarette  in  the 
twinkling  of  an  eye,  using  only  one  hand,  in 
true  Mexican  style. 

"Now, "  he  said,  as  he  drew  the  first  long 
puff  to  the  very  bottom  of  the  leathern  valves 
he  calls  his  lungs.  "Now,  I'm  a-goin'  for  to 
relate  that  same  painful  proceedin'  to  you, 
just  so  as  you  kin  get  a  line  on  the  consumin' 
and  devourin'  foolishness  o'  male  humans 
when  they's  a  woman  in  the  wind.  Woman," 
said  Bunt,  wagging  his  head  thoughtfully  at 
the  water,  "  woman  is  a  weather-breeder. 
Mister  Dixon,  they  is  three  things  I'm  skeered 
of.  The  last  two  I  don't  just  rightly  call  to 
mind  at  this  moment,  but  the  first  is  woman. 
When  I  meets  up  with  a  feemale  woman  on  my 
trail,  I  sheers  off  some  prompt,  Mr.  Dixon;  I 
sheers  off.  An'  Hardenberg, "  he  added  irrele 
vantly,  "  would  a-took  an'  married  this  woman, 
so  he  would.  Yes,  an'  Strokher  would,  too. " 

"Was  there  another  man?"  I  asked. 

"No,"  said  Bunt.  Then  he  began  to 
chuckle  behind  his  mustaches.  "Yes,  they 
was."  He  smote  a  thigh.  "They  sure  was 


Two  Hearts  that  Beat  as  One  133 

another  man  for  fair.  Well,  now,  Mr.  Man, 
lemmee  tell  you  the  whole  'how.' 

"It  began  with  me  bein'  took  into  a  wild- 
eyed  scheme  that  that  maverick,  Cy  Ryder, 
had  cooked  up  for  the  Three  Crows.  They  was 
a  row  down  Gortamalar  way.  Same  gesabe 
named  Palachi — Barreto  Palachi — findin'  times 
dull  an'  the  boys  some  off  their  feed,  ups  an* 
says  to  hisself,  'Exercise  is  wot  I  needs.  I  will 
now  take  an'  overthrow  the  blame  Gover'ment.' 
Well,  this  same  Palachi  rounds  up  a  bunch  o' 
insurrectos  an'  begins  pesterin'  an'  badgerin' 
an'  hectorin'  the  Gover'ment ;  an'  r'arin'  round 
an'  bellerin'  an'  makin'  a  procession  of  hisself, 
till  he  sure  pervades  the  landscape;  an'  before 
you  knows  what,  lo'n  beholt,  here's  a  reel  live 
Revolution-Thing  cayoodlin'  in  the  scenery,  an' 
the  Gover'ment  is  plum  bothered. 

"They  rounds  up  the  gesabe  at  last  at  a 
place  on  the  coast,  but  he  escapes  as  easy  as 
how-do-you-do.  He  can't,  howsomever,  git 
back  to  his  insurrectos;  the  blame  Gover'ment 
being  in  possession  of  all  the  trails  leadin'  into 
the  hinterland;  so  says  he,  'What  for  a  game 
would  it  be  for  me  to  hyke  up  to  'Frisco  an'  git 
in  touch  with  my  financial  backers  an'  con- 
spirate  to  smuggle  down  a  load  o'  arms?' 
Which  the  same  he  does,  and  there's  where 


134  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

the  Three  Black  Crows  an'  me  begin  to  take  a 
hand. 

"Cy  Ryder  gives  us  the  job  o'  taking  the 
schooner  down  to  a  certain  point  on  the  Gorta- 
malar  coast  and  there  delivering  to  the  agent 
o'  the  gazabo  three  thousand  stand  o'  forty- 
eight  Winchesters. 

"When  we  gits  this  far  into  the  game  Ryder 
ups  and  says: 

"  '  Boys,  here's  where  I  cashes  right  in.  You 
sets  right  to  me  for  the  schooner  and  the  cargo. 
But  you  goes  to  Palachi's  agent  over  'crost 
the  bay  for  instructions  and  directions.' 

"'But,'  says  the  Englisher,  Strokher,  'this 
bettin'  a  blind  play  don't  suit  our  hand.  Why 
not'  says  he,  'make  right  up  to  Mister  Palachi 
hisself?' 

"'No,'  says  Ryder,  'No,  boys.  Ye  can't. 
The  Sigrlor  is  lying  as  low  as  a  toad  in  a  wheel- 
track  these  days,  because  o'  the  pryin'  and 
meddlin'  disposition  o'  the  local  authorities. 
No,'  he  says,  'ye  must  have  your  palaver  with 
the  agent  which  she  is  a  woman,'  an'  thereon  I 
groans  low  and  despairin'. 

"So  soon  as  he  mentions  'feemale'  I  knowed 
trouble  was  in  the  atmosphere.  An'  right 
there  is  where  I  sure  looses  my  presence  o' 
mind.  What  I  should  a-done  was  to  say, 
'Mister  Ryder,  Hardenberg  and  gents  all: 


Two  Hearts  that  Beat  as  One  135 

You're  good  boys  an'  you  drinks  and  deals  fair, 
an'  I  loves  you  all  with  a  love  that  can  never, 
never  die  for  the  terms  o'  your  natural  lives, 
an'  may  God  have  mercy  on  your  souls;  but  I 
ain't  keepin'  case  on  this  'ere  game  no  longer. 
Woman  and  me  is  mules  an'  music.  We  ain't 
never  made  to  ride  in  the  same  go-cart.  Good- 
by.'  That-all  is  wot  I  should  ha'  said.  But 
I  didn't.  I  walked  right  plum  into  the  sloo, 
like  the  mudhead  that  I  was,  an'  got  mired 
for  fair — jes  as  I  might  a-knowed  I  would. 

"Well,  Ryder  gives  us  a  address  over  across 
the  bay  an'  we  fair  hykes  over  there  all  along  o* 
as  crool  a  rain  as  ever  killed  crops.  We  finds 
the  place  after  awhile,  a  lodgin' -house  all  lorn 
and  loony,  set  down  all  by  itself  in  the 
middle  o'  some  real  estate  extension  like  a 
tepee  in  a  'barren' — a  crazy  'modern'  house 
all  '  gimcrack  and  woodwork  and  frost  in', 
with  never  another  place  in  so  far  as  you  could 
hear  a  coyote  yelp. 

"  Well,  we  bucks  right  up  an'  asks  o'  the  party 
at  the  door  if  the  Signorita  Esperanza  Ulivarri — 
that  was  who  Ryder  had  told  us  to  ask  for — 
might  be  concealed  about  the  premises,  an'  we 
shows  Cy  Ryder's  note.  The  party  that 
opened  the  door  was  a  Greaser,  the  worst 
looking  I  ever  clapped  eyes  on — looked  like 
the  kind  wot  'ud  steal  the  coppers  off  his  dead 


136  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

grandmother's  eyes.  Anyhow,  he  says  to 
come  in,  gruiT-like,  an'  to  wait,  poco  tiempo. 

"Well,  we  waited  moucko  tiempo — muy 
moucko,  all  a-settin'  on  the  edge  of  the  sofy, 
with  our  hats  on  our  knees,  like  philly-loo 
birds  on  a  rail,  and  a-countin'  of  the  patterns 
in  the  wall-paper  to  pass  the  time  along.  An' 
Hardenberg,  who's  got  to  do  the  talkin',  gets 
the  fidgets  byne-by;  and  because  he's  only 
restin'  the  toes  o'  his  feet  on  the  floor,  his  knees 
begin  jiggerin' ;  an'  along  o'  watchin'  him, 
my  knees  begin  to  go,  an'  then  Strokher's  and 
then  Ally  Bazan's.  An'  there  we  sat  all  in  a 
row  and  jiggered  an'  jiggered.  Great  snakes, 
it  makes  me  sick  to  the  stummick  to  think  o' 
the  idjeets  we  were. 

"Then  after  a  long  time  we  hears  a  rustle  o' 
silk  petticoats,  an'  we  all  grabs  holt  o'  one 
another  an'  looks  scared-like,  out  from  under 
our  eyebrows.  An'  then — then,  Mister  Man, 
they  walks  into  that  bunk-house  parlour  the 
loveliest-lookin'  young  feemale  woman  that  ever 
wore  hair. 

"She  was  lovelier  than  Mary  Anderson;  she 
was  lovelier  than  Lotta.  She  was  tall,  an' 
black-haired,  and  had  a  eye  .  .  .  well,  I 
dunno ;  when  she  gave  you  the  littlest  flicker  o' 
that  same  eye,  you  felt  it  was  about  time  to 
take  an'  lie  right  down  an'  say,  'I  would  esteem 


Two  Hearts  that  Beat  as  One  137 

it,  ma'am,  a  sure  smart  favour  if  you  was  to 
take  an'  wipe  your  boots  on  my  waistcoat, 
jus'  so's  you  could  hear  my  heart  a-beatin'. 
That's  the  kind  o'  feemale  woman  she  was. 

"Well,  when  Hardenberg  had  caught  his 
second  wind,  we  begins  to  talk  business. 

"  'An'  you're  to  take  a  passenger  back  with 
you,'  says  Esperanza  after  awhile. 

"  'What  for  a  passenger  might  it  be?'  says 
Hardenberg. 

"She  fished  out  her  calling-card  at  that 
and  tore  it  in  two  an'  gave  Hardenberg  one- 
half. 

"'It's  the  party,'  she  says,  'that'll  come 
aboard  off  San  Diego  on  your  way  down  an* 
who  will  show  up  the  other  half  o'  the  card— 
the  half  I  have  here  an'  which  the  same  I'm 
goin'  to  mail  to  him.  An'  you  be  sure  the 
halves  fit  before  you  let  him  come  aboard. 
An'  when  that  party  comes  aboard,'  she  says, 
'he's  to  take  over  charge.' 

"'Very  good,'  says  Hardenberg,  mincing 
an'  silly  like  a  chessy  cat  lappin'  cream.  'Very 
good,  ma'am;  your  orders  shall  be  obeyed.' 
He  sure  said  it  just  like  that,  as  if  he  spoke  out 
o'  a  story-book.  An'  I  kicked  him  under  the 
table  for  it. 

"Then  we  palavers  a  whole  lot  an'  settles 
the  way  the  thing  is  to  be  run,  an'  fin'ly,  when 


138  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

we'd  got  as  far  as  could  be  that  day,  the 
Signorita  stood  up  an'  says: 

"  '  Now  me  good  fellows.'  'Twas  Spanish  she 
spoke.  'Now,  me  good  fellows,  you  must 
drink  a  drink  with  me.'  She  herds  us  all  up 
into  the  dining-room  and  fetches  out — not 
whisky,  mind  you — but  a  great,  fat,  green-and- 
gold  bottle  o'  champagne,  an'  when  Ally 
Bazan  has  fired  it  off,  she  fills  our  glasses — 
dinky  little  fiat  glasses  that  looked  like  flower 
vases.  Then  she  stands  up  there  before  us, 
fine  an'  tall,  all  in  black  silk,  an'  puts  her  glass 
up  high  an'  sings  out — 

"  'To  the  Revolution!' 

"An'  we  all  solemn-like  says,  'To  the  Revo 
lution,'  an'  crooks  our  elbows.  When  we-all 
comes  to,  about  half  an  hour  later,  we're  in 
the  street  outside,  havin'  jus'  said  good-by  to 
the  Signorita.  We-all  are  some  quiet  the 
first  block  or  so,  and  then  Hardenberg  says — 
stoppin'  dead  in  his  tracks : 

"'I  pauses  to  remark  that  when  a  certain 
young  feemale  party  havin'  black  hair  an'  a 
killin'  eye  gets  good  an'  ready  to  travel  up 
the  centre  aisle  of  a  church,  I  know  the  gent 
to  show  her  the  way,  which  he  is  six  feet  one 
in  his  stocking-feet,  some  freckled  across  the 
nose,  an'  shoots  with  both  hands.' 

"  'Which  the  same  observations,'  speaks  up 


Two  Hearts  that  Beat  as  One  139 

Strokher,  twirlin'  his  yeller  lady-killer,  'which 
the  same  observations,'  he  says,  'has  my  hearty 
indorsement  an'  cooperation  savin'  in  the 
particular  of  the  description  o'  the  gent.  The 
gent  is  five  foot  eleven  high,  three  feet  thick, 
is  the  only  son  of  my  mother,  an'  has  yeller 
mustaches  and  a  buck  tooth.' 

' '  He  don't  qualify,'  puts  in  Hardenberg. 
'First,  because  he's  a  Englisher,  and  second, 
because  he's  up  again  a  American — and 
besides,  he  has  a  tooth  that's  bucked.' 

''Buck  or  no  buck,'  flares  out  Strokher, 
'wot  might  be  the  meanin'  o'  that  remark 
consernin'  being  a  Englisher  ?' 

'"The  fact  o'  hisbein'  English,'  says  Harden 
berg,  'is  only  half  the  hoe-handle.  'Tother 
half  being  the  fact  that  the  first-named  gent 
is  all  American.  No  Yank  ain't  never  took 
no  dust  from  aft  a  Englisher,  whether  it  were 
war,  walkin' -matches,  or  women/ 

" 'But  they 's  a  Englisher,'  sings  out  Strok 
her,  'not  forty  miles  from  here  as  can  nick 
the  nose  o'  a  freckled  Yank  if  so  be  occasion 
require.' 

"Now  ain't  that  plum  foolish-like, "  ob 
served  Bunt,  philosophically.  "Ain't  it  plum 
foolish-like  o'  them  two  gesabes  to  go  flyin' 
up  in  the  air  like  two  he-hens  on  a  hot  plate— 
for  nothin'  in  the  world  but  because  a  neat 


140  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

lookin'  feemale  woman  has  looked  at  'em 
some  soft? 

"Well,  naturally,  we  others — Ally  Bazan  an' 
me — we  others  throws  it  into  'em  pretty  strong 
about  bein'  more  kinds  of  blame  fools  than  a 
pup  with  a  bug;  an'  they  simmers  down  some, 
but  along  o'  the  way  home  I  kin  see  as  how 
they're  a-glarin'  at  each  other,  an'  a-drawin' 
theirselves  up  proud-like  an'  presumptchoous, 
an'  I  groans  again,  not  loud  but  deep,  as  the 
Good  Book  says. 

"We  has  two  or  three  more  palavers  with 
the  Signorita  Esperanza  and  stacks  the  deck 
to  beat  the  harbor  police  and  the  Customs 
people  an'  all,  an'  to  nip  down  the  coast  with 
our  contraband.  An'  each  time  we  chins  with 
the  Signorita  there's  them  two  locoes  steppin' 
and  sidle'n'  around  her,  actin'  that  silly-like 
that  me  and  Ally  Bazan  takes  an'  beats  our 
heads  agin'  the  walls  so  soon  as  we're  alone 
just  because  we're  that  pizen  mortified. 

"Fin'ly  comes  the  last  talky-talk  an'  we're 
to  sail  away  next  day  an'  mebbee  snatch  the 
little  Joker  through  or  be  took  an'  hung  by 
the  Costa  Guardas. 

"An'  'Good-by,'  says  Hardenberg  to  Espe 
ranza,  in  a  faintin',  die-away  voice  like  a 
kitten  with  a  cold.  'An'  ain't  we  goin'  to 
meet  no  more  ?' 


Two  Hearts  that  Beat  as  One  141 

"  'I  sure  hopes  as  much,'  puts  in  Strokher, 
smirkin'  so's  you'd  think  he  was  a  he-milliner 
sellin'  a  bonnet.  'I  hope,'  says  he,  'our  delight 
ful  acquaintanceship  ain't  a-goin'  for  to  end 
abrupt  this-a-way.' 

"'Oh,  you  nice,  big  Mister  Men,'  pipes' up 
the  Signorita  in  English,  'we  will  meet  down 
there  in  Gortamalar  soon  again,  yes,  because 
I  go  down  by  the  vapour  carriages  to-morrow.' 

"  'Unprotected,  too,'  says  Hardenberg,  wag- 
gin'  his  fool  head.  'An'  so  young  !' 

"  Holy  Geronimo  !  I  don't  know  what  more 
fool  drivelin'  they  had,  but  they  fin'ly  comes 
away.  Ally  Bazan  and  me  rounds  'em  up 
and  conducts  'em  to  the  boat  an'  puts  'em  to 
bed  like  as  if  they  was  little — or  drunk,  an' 
the  next  day — or  next  night,  rather — about 
one  o'clock,  wTe  slips  the  heel  ropes  and 
hobbles  o'  the  schooner  quiet  as  a  mountain- 
lion  stalking  a  buck,  and  catches  the  out-tide 
through  the  gate  o'  the  bay.  Lord,  we  was 
some  keyed  up,  lemmee  tell  you,  an'  Ally 
Bazan  and  Hardenberg  was  at  the  fore  end  o' 
the  boat  with  their  guns  ready  in  case  o'  bein' 
asked  impert'nent  questions  by  the  patrol- 
boats. 

"Well,  how-some-ever,  we  nips  out  with  the 
little  Jokers  (they  was  writ  in  the  manifest  as 
minin'  pumps)  an'  starts  south.  This  'ere 


142  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

pasear  down  to  Gortamalar  is  the  first  time  I 
goes  a-gallying  about  on  what  the  Three  Crows 
calls  'blue  water' ;  and  when  that  schooner  hit 
the  bar  I  begins  to  remember  that  my  stum- 
mick  and  inside  arrangements  ain't  made  o* 
no  chilled  steel,  nor  yet  o'  rawhide.  First  I 
gits  plum  sad,  and  shivery,  and  I  feels  as 
mean  an*  pore  as  a  prairie-dog  w'ich  'as  eat  a 
horned  toad  back'ards.  I  goes  to  Ally  Bazan 
and  gives  it  out  as  how  I'm  going  for  to  die,  an* 
I  puts  it  up  that  I'm  sure  sad  and  depressed- 
like;  an'  don't  care  much  about  life  nohow; 
an'  that  present  surroundin's  lack  that  certain 
undescribable  charm.  I  tells  him  that  I 
knows  the  ship  is  goin'  to  sink  afore  we  git  over 
the  bar.  Waves  ! — they  was  higher 'n  the  masts ; 
and  I've  rode  some  fair  lively  sun-fishers  in 
my  time,  but  I  ain't  never  struck  any  thin* 
like  the  r'arin'  and  buckin'  and  high-an' -lofty 
tumblin'  that  that  same  boat  went  through 
with  those  first  few  hours  after  we  had  come 
out. 

"  But  Ally  Bazan  tells  me  to  go  downstairs 
in  the  boat  an'  lie  up  quiet,  an'  byne-by  I  do 
feel  better.  By  next  day  I  kin  sit  up  and 
take  solid  food  again.  An'  then's  when  I 
takes  special  notice  o'  the  everlastin'  foolish 
ness  o'  Strokner  and  Hardenberg. 

"You'd  a  thought  each  one  o'  them  two 


Two  Hearts  that  Beat  as  One  143 

mush-heads  was  tryin'  to  act  the  part  of  a 
ole  cow  which  has  had  her  calf  took.  They 
goes  a-moonin'  about  the  boat  that  mournful 
it  'ud  make  you  yell  jus'  out  o'  sheer  nervous 
ness.  First  one  'ud  up  an'  hold  his  head  on 
his  hand  an'  lean  on  the  fence-rail  that  ran 
around  the  boat,  and  sigh  till  he'd  raise  his 
pants  clean  outa  the  top  o'  his  boots.  An' 
then  the  other  'ud  go  off  in  another  part  o'  the 
boat  an'  he'd  sigh  an'  moon  an'  take  on  fit  to 
sicken  a  coyote. 

"But  byne-by — we're  mebbee  six  days  to 
the  good  o'  'Frisco — byne-by  they  two  gits 
kind  o'  sassy  along  o'  each  t'other,  an'  they 
has  a  heart-to-heart  talk  and  puts  it  up  as  how 
either  one  o'  'em  'ud  stand  to  win  so  only  the 
t'other  was  out  o'  the  game. 

"  'It's  double  or  nothing,'  says  Hardenberg, 
who  is  somethin'  o'  a  card  sharp,  'for  either 
you  or  me,  Stroke;  an'  if  you're  agreeable  I'll 
play  you  a  round  o'  jacks  for  the  chance  at  the 
Signorita — the  loser  to  pull  out  o'  the  running 
for  good  an'  all.' 

"No,  Strokher  don't  come  in  on  no  such 
game,  he  says.  He  wins  her,  he  says,  as  a  man, 
and  not  as  no  poker  player.  No,  nor  he  won't 
throw  no  dice  for  the  chance  o'  winnin'  Espe- 
ranza,  nor  he  won't  flip  no  coin,  nor  yet  'rastle. 
'But,'  says  he  all  of  a  sudden,  Til  tell  you 


144  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

which  Til  do.  You're  a  big,  thick,  strappin* 
hulk  o'  a  two-fisted  dray-horse,  Hardie,  an'  I 
ain't  no  effete  an'  digenerate  one-lunger  myself. 
Here's  wot  I  propose — that  we-all  takes  an' 
lays  out  a  sixteen-foot  ring  on  the  quarter 
deck,  an'  that  the  raw-boned  Yank  and  the 
stodgy  Englisher  strips  to  the  waist,  an'  all- 
friendly-like,  settles  the  question  by  Queens- 
bury  rules  an'  may  the  best  man  win.' 

"Hardenberg  looks  him  over. 

"'An'  wot  might  be  your  weight?'  says  he. 
'I  don't  figure  on  hurtin'  of  you,  if  so  be  you're 
below  my  class.' 

"  'I  fights  at  a  hunder  and  seventy,'  says 
Strokher. 

"  'An'  me,'  says  Hardenberg,  'at  a  hunder 
an*  seventy-five.  We're  matched.' 

"  'Is  it  a  go?'  inquires  Strokher. 

"  'You  bet  your  great-gran'mammy's  tortis- 
shell  chessy  cat  it's  a  go,'  says  Hardenberg, 
prompt  as  a  hop-frog  catching  flies. 

"We  don't  lose  no  time  trying  to  reason 
with  'em,  for  they  is  sure  keen  on  havin'  the 
go.  So  we  lays  out  a  ring  by  the  rear  end  o' 
the  deck,  an'  runs  the  schooner  in  till  we're 
in  the  lee  o'  the  land,  an'  she  ridin'  steady  on 
her  pins. 

"Then  along  o'  about  four  o'clock  on  a  fine 
still  day  we  lays  the  boat  to,  as  they  say,  an' 


Two  Hearts  that  Beat  as  One  145 

folds  up  the  sail,  an'  bavin'  scattered  resin  in 
the  ring  (which  it  ain't  no  ring,  but  a  square  o' 
ropes  on  posts),  we  says  all  is  ready. 

"Ally  Bazan,  he's  referee,  an'  me,  I'm  the 
time -keeper  which  I  has  to  ring  the  ship's  bell 
every  three  minutes  to  let  'em  know  to  quit 
an'  that  the  round  is  over. 

"We  gets  'em  into  the  ring,  each  in  his  own 
corner,  squattin'  on  a  bucket,  the  time-keeper 
bein'  second  to  Hardenberg  an'  the  referee 
being  second  to  Strokher.  An'  then,  after 
they  has  shuk  hands,  I  climbs  up  on'  the 
chicken-coop  an'  hollers  'Time'  an'  they  begins. 

"Mister  Man,  I've  saw  Tim  Henan  at  his 
best,  an'  I've  saw  Sayres  when  he  was  a  top- 
notcher,  an'  likewise  several  other  irregler 
boxin'  sharps  that  were  sure  tough  tarriers. 
Also  I've  saw  two  short-horn  bulls  arguin' 
about  a  question  o'  leadership,  but  so  help  me 
Bob — the  fight  I  saw  that  day  made  the  others 
look  like  a  young  ladies'  quadrille.  Oh,  I  ain't 
goin'  to  tell  o'  that  mill  in  detail,  nor  by  rounds. 
Rounds !  After  the  first  five  minutes  they 
wa'rit  no  rounds.  I  rung  the  blame  bell  till  I 
rung  her  loose  an'  Ally  Bazan  yells  'break-a 
way'  an'  'time's  up'  till  he's  black  in  the  face, 
but  you  could  no  more  separate  them  two 
than  you  could  put  the  brakes  on  a  blame 
earthquake. 


14.6  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

11  At  about  suppertime  we  pulled  'em  apart. 
We  could  do  it  by  then,  they  was  both  so  gone ; 
an'  jammed  each  one  o'  'em  down  in  their 
corners.  I  rings  my  bell  good  an'  plenty,  an' 
Ally  Bazan  stands  up  on  a  bucket  in  the 
middle  o'  the  ring  an'  says: 

1<I  declare  this  'ere  glove  contest  a  draw.' 

"An'  draw  it  sure  was.  They  fit  for  two 
hours  stiddy  an'  never  a  one  got  no  better  o' 
the  other.  They  give  each  other  lick  for  lick 
as  fast  an'  as  steady  as  they  could  stand  to  it. 
'Rastlin',  borin'  in,  boxin' — all  was  alike.  The 
one  was  just  as  good  as  t'other.  An'  both 
willin'  to  the  very  last. 

"When  Ally  Bazan  calls  it  a  draw,  they  gits 
up  and  wobbles  toward  each  other  an'  shakes 
hands,  and  Hardenberg  he  says: 

"'Stroke,  I  thanks  you  a  whole  lot  for  as 
neat  a  go  as  ever  I  mixed  in.' 

"An'  Strokher  answers  up: 

"  '  Hardie,  I  loves  you  better 'n  ever.  You'se 
the  first  man  I've  met  up  with  which  I  couldn't 
do  for — an'  I've  met  up  with  some  scraggy 
propositions  in  my  time,  too.' 

"  Well,  they  two  is  a  sorry-lookin'  pair  o'  birds 
by  the  time  we  runs  into  San  Diego  harbour 
next  night.  They  was  fine  lookin'  objects  for 
fair,  all  bruises  and  bumps.  You  remember 
now  we  was  to  take  on  a  party  at  San  Diego 


Two  Hearts  that  Beat  as  One  147 

who  was  to  show  t'other  half  o'  Esperanza's 
card,  an'  thereafterward  to  boss  the  job. 

"Well,  we  waits  till  nightfall  an'  then  slides 
in  an'  lays  to  off  a  certain  pile  o'  stone,  an' 
shows  two  green  lights  and  one  white  every 
three  and  a  half  minutes  for  half  a  hour — this 
being  a  signal. 

"They  is  a  moon,  an'  we  kin  see  pretty  well. 
After  we'd  signaled  about  a  hour,  mebbee,  we 
gits  the  answer — a  one-minute  green  flare, 
and  thereafterward  we  makes  out  a  rowboat 
putting  out  and  comin'  towards  us.  They 
is  two  people  in  the  boat.  One  is  the  gesabe 
at  the  oars  an'  the  other  a  party  sitting  in  the 
hinder  end. 

"  Ally  Bazan  an'  me,  an'  Strokher  an*  Harden- 
berg,  we's  all  leanin'  over  the  fence  a-watchin' ; 
when  all  to  once  I  ups  an'  groans  some  sad. 
The  party  in  the  hinder  end  o'  the  boat  bein' 
feemale. 

"  'Ain't  we  never  goin'  to  git  shut  of  'em?' 
says  I;  but  the  words  ain't  no  more'n  off  my 
teeth  when  Strokher  pipes  up: 

"  'It's  she,'  says  he,  gaspin'  as  though  shot 
hard. 

"  'Wot !'  cries  Hardenberg,  sort  of  mystified, 
'Oh,  I'm  sure  a-dreamin'  !'  he  says,  just  that 
silly-like. 

"'An'  the  mugs  we've  got!'  says  Strokher. 


148  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

An'  they  both  sets  to  swearin'  and  cussin'  to 
beat  all  I  ever  heard. 

' '  I  can't  let  her  see  me  so  bunged  up,' 
says  Hardenberg,  doleful-like,  'Oh,  whatever 
is  to  be  done?' 

' '  An'  /  look  like  a  real  genuine  blown-in- 
the-bottle  pug,'  whimpers  Strokher.  'Never 
mind,'  says  he,  'we  must  face  the  music.  We'll 
tell  her  these  are  sure  honourable  scars,  got 
because  we  fit  for  her.' 

"Well,  the  boat  comes  up  an'  the  feemale 
party  jumps  out  and  comes  up  the  let-down 
stairway,  onto  the  deck.  Without  sayin'  a 
word  she  hands  Hardenberg  the  half  o'  the 
card  and  he  fishes  out  his  half  an'  matches 
the  two  by  the  light  o'  a  lantern. 

"  By  this  time  the  rowboat  has  gone  a  little 
ways  off,  an'  then  at  last  Hardenberg  says: 

"  'Welkum  aboard,  Signorita.' 

"And  Strokher  cuts  in  with — 

'We  thought  it  was  to  be  a  man  that  'ud 
join  us  here  to  take  command,  but  you,'  he 
says — an'  oh,  butter  wouldn't  a-melted  in  his 
mouth — 'But  you  he  says,  'is  always  our 
mistress. 

'Very  right,  bueno.  Me  good  fellows,' 
says  the  Signorita,  'but  don't  you  be  afraid 
that  they's  no  man  is  at  the  head  o'  this 
business.'  An'  with  that  the  party  chucks 


Two  Hearts  that  Beat  as  One  149 

off  hat  an'   skirts,   and   Til  be  Mexican  if  it 
wa'n't  a  man  after  all! 

"'I'm  the  Signer  Barreto  Palachi,  gentle 
men,'  says  he.  'The  gringo  police  who  wanted 
for  to  arrest  me  made  the  disguise  necessary. 
Gentlemen,  I  regret  to  have  been  obliged  to 
deceive  such  gallant  compadres;  but  war  knows 
no  law.' 

"Hardenberg  and  Strokher  gives  one  look 
at  the  Signor  and  another  at  their  own 
spiled  faces,  then: 

"'Come  back  here  with  the  boat!'  roars 
Hardenberg  over  the  side,  and  with  that— 
(upon  me  word  you'd  a-thought  they  two  both 
were  moved  with  the  same  spring) — over  they 
goes  into  the  water  and  strikes  out  hands  over 
hands  for  the  boat  as  hard  as  ever  they  kin  lay 
to  it.  The  boat  meets  'em — Lord  knows  what 
the  party  at  the  oars  thought — they  climbs  in 
an'  the  last  I  sees  of  'em  they  was  puttin'  for 
shore — each  havin'  taken  a  oar  from  the  boat 
man,  an'  they  sure  was  makin'  that  boat  hum. 

"Well,  we  sails  away  eventually  without 
'em;  an'  a  year  or  more  afterward  I  crosses 
their  trail  again  in  Cy  Ryder's  office  in 
'Frisco." 

"Did  you  ask  them  about  it  all?"  said  I. 

"Mister  Man,"  observed  Bunt.  "I'm  several 
kinds  of  a  fool;  I  know  it.  But  sometimes 


150  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

I'm  wise.  I  wishes  for  to  live  as  long  as  I  can, 
an'  die  when  I  can't  help  it.  I  does  not,  neither 
there,  nor  thereafterward,  ever  make  no  joke, 
nor  yet  no  alloosion  about,  or  concerning  the 
Signorita  Esperanza  Palachi  in  the  hearin'  o' 
Hardenberg  an'  Strokher.  I've  seen — (ye  re 
member) — both  those  boys  use  their  fists — 
an'  likewise  Hardenberg,  as  he  says  hisself, 
shoots  with  both  hands. " 


THE  DUAL  PERSONALITY  OF 
SLICK  DICK  NICKERSON 


THE  DUAL  PERSONALITY  OF  SUCK 
DICK  NICKERSON 

I 

a  certain  morning  in  the  spring  of  the 
year,  the  three  men  who  were  known 
as  the  Three  Black  Crows  called  at  the  office  of 
"The  President  of  the  Pacific  and  Oriental 
Flotation  Company,"  situated  in  an  obscure 
street  near  San  Francisco's  water-front.  They 
were  Strokher,  the  tall,  blond,  solemn,  silent 
Englishman;  Hardenberg,  the  American,  dry 
of  humour,  shrewd,  resourceful,  who  bargained 
like  a  Vermonter  and  sailed  a  schooner  like  a 
Gloucester  cod-fisher;  and  in  their  company, 
as  ever  inseparable  from  the  other  two,  came 
the  little  colonial,  nicknamed,  for  occult  reasons, 
"Ally  Bazan, "  a  small,  wiry  man,  excitable, 
vociferous,  who  was  without  fear,  without  guile 
and  without  money. 

When  Hardenberg,  who  was  always  spokes 
man  for  the  Three  Crows,  had  sent  in  their 
names,  they  were  admitted  at  once  to  the  inner 
office  of  the  "President."  The  President  was 
an  old  man,  bearded  like  a  prophet,  with  a 


154  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

watery  blue  eye  and  a  forehead  wrinkled  like  an 
orang's.  He  spoke  to  the  Three  Crows  in  the 
manner  of  one  speaking  to  friends  he  has  not 
seen  in  some  time. 

"Well,  Mr.  Ryder,"  began  Hardenberg. 
"We  called  around  to  see  if  you  had  anything 
fer  us  this  morning.  I  don't  mind  telling  you 
that  we're  at  liberty  jus'  now.  Anything 
doing?" 

Ryder  fingered  his  beard  distressfully.  "  Very 
little,  Joe;  very  little." 

"Got  any  wrecks?" 

"Not  a  wreck." 

Hardenberg  turned  to  a  great  map  that 
hung  on  the  wall  by  Ryder's  desk.  It 
was  marked  in  places  by  red  crosses,  against 
which  were  written  certain  numbers  and 
letters.  Hardenberg  put  his  finger  on  a 
small  island  south  of  the  Marquesas  group 
and  demanded:  "What  might  be  H.  33,  Mr. 
President?" 

"Pearl  Island,"  answered  the  President. 
"Davidson  is  on  that  job." 

"Or  H.  125?"  Hardenberg  indicated  a 
point  in  the  Gilbert  group. 

"Guano  deposits.     That's  promised." 

"Hallo!  You're  up  in  the  Aleutians.  I 
make  out.  20  A. — what's  that?" 

"Old  government  telegraph  wire — line  aban- 


Dual  Personality  of  Slick  Dick  Nicker  son  155 

doned — finest  drawn-copper  wire.  I've  had 
three  boys  at  that  for  months. " 

"What's  301?  This  here,  off  the  Mexican 
coast?" 

The  President,  unable  to  remember,  turned 
to  his  one  clerk:  "Hyers,  what's  301?  Isn't 
that  Peterson?" 

The  clerk  ran  his  finger  down  a  column: 
"No,  sir;  301  is  the  Whisky  Ship." 

"  Ah  !  So  it  is.  I  remember.  You  remember, 
too,  Joe.  Little  schooner,  the  Tropic  Bird— 
sixty  days  out  from  Callao — five  hundred  cases 
of  whisky  aboard — sunk  in  squall.  It  was 
thirty  years  ago.  Think  of  five  hundred  cases 
of  thirty-year-old  whisky !  There's  money 
in  that  if  I  can  lay  my  hands  on  the  schooner. 
Suppose  you  try  that,  you  boys — on  a  twenty 
per  cent,  basis.  Come  now,  what  do  you  say  ? " 

"Not  for  five  per  cent.,"  declared  Harden- 
•  berg.  "How'd  we  raise  her?  How'd  we 
know  how  deep  she  lies  ?  Not  for  Joe.  What's 
the  matter  with  landing  arms  down  here 
in  Central  America  for  Bocas  and  his 
gang?" 

"I'm  out  o'  that,  Joe.  Too  much  competi 
tion." 

"What's  doing  here  in  Tahiti— No.  88?  It 
ain't  lettered." 

Once  more  the  President  consulted  his  books. 


156  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

"Ah!-— 88.  Here  we  are.  Cache  o'  illicit 
pearls.  I  had  it  looked  up.  Nothing  in  it." 

"Say,  Cap'n!" — Hardenberg's  eye  had 
traveled  to  the  tipper  edge  of  the  map — 
"whatever  did  you  strike  up  here  in  Alaska? 
At  Point  Barrow,  s'elp  me  Bob  !  It's  48  B. " 

The  President  stirred  uneasily  in  his  place. 
"Well,  I  ain't  quite  worked  that  scheme  out, 
Joe.  But  I  smell  the  deal.  There's  a  Russian 
post  along  there  some'eres.  Where  they  catch 
sea-otters.  And  the  skins  o'  sea-otters  are 
selling  this  very  day  for  seventy  dollars  at  any 
port  in  China." 

"I  s'y, "  piped  up  Ally  Bazan,  "I  knows  a 
bit  about  that  gyme.  They's  a  bally  kind  o' 
Lum-tums  among  them  Chinese  as  sports 
those  syme  skins  on  their  bally  clothes — as  a 
mark  o'  rank,  d'ye  see. " 

"  Have  you  figured  at  all  on  the  proposition, 
Cap'n?"  inquired  Hardenberg. 

"There's  risk  in  it,  Joe;  big  risk,"  declared 
the  President  nervously.  "But  I'd  only  ask 
fifteen  per  cent. " 

"You  have  worked  out  the  scheme,  then." 

"Well — ah — y'see,  there's  the  risk,  and— 
ah—  Suddenly  Ryder  leaned  forward, 

his  watery  blue  eyes  glinting:  "Boys,  it's  a 
jewel.  It's  just  your  kind.  I'd  a-sent  for 
you,  to  try  on  this  very  scheme,  if  you  hadn't 


Dual  Personality  of  Slick  Dick  Nicker  son  157 

shown  up.  You  kin  have  the  Bertha  Millner — 
I've  a  year's  charter  o'  her  from  Wilbur — and 
I'll  only  ask  you  fifteen  per  cent,  of  the  net 
profits — net,  mind  you." 

"I  ain't  buy  in'  no  dead  horse,  Cap'n, " 
returned  Hardenberg,  "but  I'll  say  this:  we 
pay  no  fifteen  per  cent." 

"Banks  and  the  Ruggles  were  daft  to  try  it 
and  give  me  twenty-five." 

"An'  where  would  Banks  land  the  scheme? 
I  know  him.  You  put  him  on  that  German 
cipher-code  job  down  Honolulu  way,  an'  it 
cost  you  about  a  thousand  before  you 
could  pull  out.  We'll  give  you  seven  an'  a 
half." 

"Ten,"  declared  Ryder,  "ten,  Joe,  at  the 
very  least.  Why,  how  much  do  you  suppose 
just  the  stores  would  cost  me?  And  Point 
Barrow — why,  Joe,  that's  right  up  in  the 
Arctic.  I  got  to  run  the  risk  o'  you  getting 
the  Bertha  smashed  in  the  ice. " 

"What  do  we  risk?"  retorted  Hardenberg; 
and  it  was  the  monosyllabic  Strokher  who  gave 
the  answer: 

"Chokee,  by  Jove!" 

"  Ten  is  fair.  It's  ten  or  nothing, "  answered 
Hardenberg. 

"Gross,  then,  Joe.  Ten  on  the  gross — or 
I  give  the  job  to  the  Ruggles  and  Banks. " 


158  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

" Who's  your  bloomin'  agent?"  put  in  Ally 
Bazan. 

"Nickerson.  I  sent  him  with  Peterson  on 
that  Mary  Archer  wreck  scheme.  An'  you 
know  what  Peterson  says  of  him — didn't  give 
him  no  trouble  at  all.  One  o'  my  best  men, 
boys. " 

" There  have  been,"  observed  Strokher  stol 
idly,  "  certain  stories  told  about  Nickerson. 
Not  that  /  wish  to  seem  suspicious,  but  I  put 
it  to  you  as  man  to  man. " 

"Ay,"  exclaimed  Ally  Bazan.  "He  was 
fair  nutty  once,  they  tell  me.  Threw  some 
kind  o'  bally  fit  an'  come  aout  all  skew-jee'd 
in  his  mind.  Forgot  his  nyme  an'  all.  I  s'y, 
how  abaout  him,  anyw'y?" 

"  Boys, "  said  Ryder,  "  I'll  tell  you.  Nicker 
son — yes,  I  know  the  yarns  about  him.  It  was 
this  way — y'see,  I  ain't  keeping  anything  from 
you,  boys.  Two  years  ago  he  was  a  Methody 
preacher  in  Santa  Clara.  Well,  he  was  what 
they  call  a  revivalist,  and  he  was  holding  forth 
one  blazin'  hot  day  out  in  the  sun  when  all  to 
once  he  goes  down,  flat,  an'  don't  come  round 
for  the  better  part  o'  two  days.  When  he 
wakes  up  he's  another  person;  he'd  forgot  his 
name,  forgot  his  job,  forgot  the  whole  blamed 
shooting-match.  And  he  ain't  never  remem 
bered  them  since.  The  doctors  have  names 


Dual  Personality  of  Slick  Dick  Nicker  son  159 

for  that  kind  o'  thing.  It  seems  it  does  happen 
now  and  again.  Well,  he  turned  to  an'  began 
sailoring  first  off — soon  as  the  hospitals  and 
medicos  were  done  with  him — an'  him  not 
having  any  friends  as  you  might  say,  he  was 
let  go  his  own  gait.  He  got  to  be  third  mate 
of  some  kind  o'  dough-dish  down  Mexico  way; 
and  then  I  got  hold  o'  him  an'  took  him  into 
the  Comp'ny.  He's  been  with  me  ever  since. 
He  ain't  got  the  faintest  kind  o'  recollection  o' 
his  Methody  days,  an'  believes  he's  always 
been  a  sailorman.  Well,  that's  his  business, 
ain't  it?  If  he  takes  my  orders  an'  walks 
chalk,  what  do  I  care  about  his  Methody  game  ? 
There,  boys,  is  the  origin,  history  and  develop 
ment  of  Slick  Dick  Nickerson.  If  you  take  up 
this  sea-otter  deal  and  go  to  Point  Barrow, 
naturally  Nick  has  got  to  go  as  owner's  agent 
and  representative  of  the  Comp'ny.  But  I 
couldn't  send  a  easier  fellow  to  get  along  with. 
Honest,  now,  I  couldn't.  Boys,  you  think 
over  the  proposition  between  now  and  to 
morrow  an'  then  come  around  and  let  me 
know." 

And  the  upshot  of  the  whole  matter  was  that 
one  month  later  the  Bertha  Millner,  with 
Nickerson,  Hardenberg,  Strokher  and  Ally 
Bazan  on  board,  cleared  from  San  Francisco, 
bound — the  papers  were  beautifully  precise — 


160  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

for  Seattle  and  Tacoma  with  a  cargo  of  general 
merchandise. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  bulk  of  her  cargo 
consisted  of  some  odd  hundreds  of  very  fine 
lumps  of  rock — which  as  ballast  is  cheap  by  the 
ton — and  some  odd  dozen  cases  of  conspicuously 
labeled  champagne. 

The  Pacific  and  Oriental  Flotation  Company 
made  this  champagne  out  of  Rhine  wine, 
effervescent  salts,  raisins,  rock  candy  and 
alcohol.  It  was  from  the  same  stock  of  wine 
of  which  Ryder  had  sold  some  thousand  cases 
to  the  Coreans  the  year  before. 


II 


"Nor  that  I  care  a  curse,"  said  Strokher, 
the  Englishman.  "But  I  put  it  to  you 
squarely  that  this  voyage  lacks  that  certain 
indescribable  charm." 

The  Bertha  Millner  was  a  fortnight  out,  and 
the  four  adventurers — or,  rather,  the  three 
adventurers  and  Nickerson — were  lame  in 
every  joint,  red-eyed  from  lack  of  sleep,  half- 
starved,  wholly  wet  and  unequivocally  dis 
gusted.  They  had  had  heavy  weather  from 
the  day  they  bade  farewell  to  the  whistling 
buoy  off  San  Francisco  Bay  until  the  moment 
when  even  patient,  docile,  taciturn  Strokher 
had  at  last — in  his  own  fashion — rebelled. 

"Ain't  I  a  dam'  fool?  Ain't  I  a  proper  lot? 
Gard  strike  me  if  I  don't  chuck  fer  fair  after 
this.  Wot'd  I  come  to  sea  fer — an'  this  'ere 
go  is  the  worst  I  ever  knew — a  baoat  no  bigger 'n 
a  bally  bath-tub,  head  seas,  livin'  gyles  the 
clock  'round,  wet  food,  wet  clothes,  wet  bunks. 
Caold  till,  by  cricky  !  I've  lost  the  feel  o'  mee 
feet.  An'  wat  for?  For  the  bloomin'  good 
chanst  o'  a  slug  in  mee  guts.  That's  wat  for. " 
161 


1 62  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

At  little -^  intervals  the  little  vociferous 
colonial,  Ally  Bazan — he  was  red-haired  and 
speckled — capered  with  rage,  shaking  his  fists. 

But  Hardenberg  only  shifted  his  cigar  to 
the  other  corner  of  his  mouth.  He  knew  Ally 
Bazan,  and  knew  that  the  little  fellow  would 
have  jeered  at  the  offer  of  a  first-cabin  passage 
back  to  San  Francisco  in  the  swiftest,  surest, 
steadiest  passenger  steamer  that  ever  wore 
paint.  So  he  remarked:  "I  ain't  ever  billed 
this  promenade  as  a  Coney  Island  picnic,  I 
guess." 

Nickerson — Slick  Dick,  the  supercargo — 
was  all  that  Hardenberg,  who  captained  the 
schooner,  could  expect.  He  never  interfered, 
never  questioned;  never  protested  in  the  name 
or  interests  of  the  Company  when  Hardenberg 
"hung  on"  in  the  bleak,  bitter  squalls  till  the 
Bertha  was  rail  under  and  the  sails  hard  as 
iron. 

If  it  was  true  that  he  had  once  been  a  Methody 
revivalist  no  one,  to  quote  Alia  Bazan,  "could 
a'  smelled  it  off'n  him."  He  was  a  black- 
bearded,  scrawling  six-footer,  with  a  voice  like 
a  steam  siren  and  a  fist  like  a  sledge.  He 
carried  two  revolvers,  spoke  of  the  Russians  at 
Point  Barrow  as  the  "  Boomskys, "  and  boasted 
if  it  came  to  that  he'd  engage  to  account  for 
two  of  them,  would  shove  their  heads  into  their 


Dual  Personality  of  Slick  Dick  Nicker  son  163 

boot-legs   and   give   them   the   running   scrag, 
by  God  so  he  would  ! 

Slowly,  laboriously,  beset  in  blinding  fogs, 
swept  with  icy  rains,  buffeted  and  mauled  and 
man-handled  by  the  unending  assaults  of  the 
sea,  the  Bertha  Millner  worked  her  way  north 
ward  up  that  iron  coast — till  suddenly  she 
entered  an  elysium. 

Overnight  she  seemed  to  have  run  into  it: 
it  was  a  world  of  green,  wooded  islands,  of 
smooth  channels,  of  warm  and  steady  winds, 
of  cloudless  skies.  Coming  on  deck  upon  the 
morning  of  the  Bertha's  first  day  in  this  new 
region,  Ally  Bazan  gazed  open-mouthed.  Then : 
"I  s'y!"  he  yelled.  "Hey!  By  crickey ! 
Look!"  He  slapped  his  thighs.  "S'trewth! 
This  is  'eavenly. " 

Strokher  was  smoking  his  pipe  on  the  hatch 
combings.  "Rather,"  he  observed.  "An*  I 
put  it  to  you — we've  deserved  it." 

In  the  main,  however,  the  northward  flitting 
was  uneventful.  Every  fifth  day  Nickerson 
got  drunk — on  the  Company's  Corean  cham 
pagne.  Now  that  the  weather  had  sweetened, 
the  Three  Black  Crows  had  less  to  do  in  the 
way  of  handling  and  nursing  the  schooner. 
Their  plans  when  the  "Boomskys"  should  be 
reached  wrere  rehearsed  over  and  over  again. 
Then  came  spells  of  card  and  checker  playing, 


164  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

story-telling,  or  hours  of  silent  inertia  when, 
man  fashion,  they  brooded  over  pipes  in  a 
patch  of  sun,  somnolent,  the  mind  empty  of 
all  thought. 

But  at  length  the  air  took  on  a  keener  tang; 
there  was  a  bite  to  the  breeze,  the  sun  lost  his 
savour  and  the  light  of  him  lengthened  till 
Hardenberg  could  read  off  logarithms  at  ten 
in  the  evening.  Great-coats  and  sweaters 
were  had  from  the  chests,  and  it  was  no  man's 
work  to  reef  when  the  wind  came  down  from 
out  the  north. 

Each  day  now  the  schooner  was  drawing 
nearer  the  Arctic  Circle.  At  length  snow  fell, 
and  two  days  later  they  saw  their  first  iceberg. 

Hardenberg  worked  out  their  position  on 
the  chart  and  bore  to  the  eastward  till  he  made 
out  the  Alaskan  coast — a  smudge  on  the 
horizon.  For  another  week  he  kept  this  in 
sight,  the  schooner  dodging  the  bergs  that  by 
now  drove  by  in  squadrons,  and  even  bumping 
and  but  ling  through  drift  and  slush  ice. 

Seals  were  plentiful,  and  Hardenberg  and 
Strokher  promptly  revived  the  quarrel  of  their 
respective  nations.  Once  even  they  slew  a 
mammoth  bull  walrus — astray  from  some 
northern  herd — and  played  poker  for  the  tusks. 
Then  suddenly  they  pulled  themselves  sharply 
together,  and,  as  it  were,  stood  "attention." 


Dual  Personality  of  Slick  Dick  Nickerson  165 

For  more  than  a  week  the  schooner,  following 
the  trend  of  the  far-distant  coast,  had  headed 
eastward,  and  now  at  length,  looming  out  of 
the  snow  and  out  of  the  mist,  a  somber 
bulwark,  black,  vast,  ominous,  rose  the  scarps 
and  crags  of  that  which  they  came  so  far  to 
see — Point  Barrow. 

Hardenberg  rounded  the  point,  ran  in  under 
the  lee  of  the  land  and  brought  out  the  chart 
which  Ryder  had  given  him.  Then  he  short 
ened  sail  and  moved  west  again  till  Barrow 
was  "hull  down"  behind  him.  To  the  north 
was  the  Arctic,  treacherous,  nursing  hurricanes, 
ice-sheathed;  but  close  aboard,  not  a  quarter 
of  a  mile  off  his  counter,  stretched  a  gray  and 
gloomy  land,  barren,  bleak  as  a  dead  planet, 
inhospitable  as  the  moon. 

For  three  days  they  crawled  along  the  edge 
keeping  their  glasses  trained  upon  every  bay, 
every  inlet.  Then  at  length,  early  one  morn 
ing,  Ally  Bazan,  who  had  been  posted  at  the 
bows,  came  scrambling  aft  to  Hardenberg  at 
the  wheel.  He  was  gasping  for  breath  in  his 
excitement. 

"Hi!  There  we  are,"  he  shouted.  "O 
Lord  !  Oh,  I  s'y  !  Now  we're  in  fer  it.  That's 
them !  That's  them !  By  the  great  jumpin' 
jimminy  Christmas,  that's  them  fer  fair ! 
Strike  me  blind  for  a  bleedin'  gutter-cat  if  it 


i66  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

eyent.  O  Lord !  S'y,  I  gotta  to  get  drunk. 
S'y,  what-all's  the  first  jump  in  the  bally  game 
now?" 

"Well,  the  first  thing,  little  man,"  observed 
Hardenberg,  "is  for  your  mother's  son  to 
hang  the  monkey  onto  the  safety-valve.  Keep 
y'r  steam  and  watch  y'r  uncle." 

"Scrag  the  Boomskys,"  said  Slick  Dick 
encouragingly. 

Strokher  pulled  the  left  end  of  his  viking 
mustache  with  the  fingers  of  his  right  hand. 

"  We  must  now  talk, "  he  said. 

A  last  conference  was  held  in  the  cabin,  and 
the  various  parts  of  the  comedy  rehearsed. 
Also  the  three  looked  to  their  revolvers. 

"  Not  that  I  expect  a  rupture  of  diplomatic 
relations,"  commented  Strokher;  "but  if 
there's  any  shooting  done,  as  between  man 
and  man,  I  choose  to  do  it. " 

"All  understood,  then?"  asked  Hardenberg, 
looking  from  face  to  face.  "There  won't  be 
no  chance  to  ask  questions  once  we  set  foot 
ashore." 

The  others  nodded. 

It  was  not  difficult  to  get  in  with  the  seven 
Russian  sea-otter  fishermen  at  the  post.  Cer 
tain  of  them  spoke  a  macerated  English,  and 
through  these  Hardenberg,  Ally  Bazan  and 
Nickerson — Strokher  remained  on  board  to 


Dual  Personality  of  Slick  Dick  Nicker  son  167 

look  after  the  schooner — told  to  the  "Boom- 
skys"  a  lamentable  tale  of  the  reported  wreck 
of  a  vessel,  described  by  Hardenbcrg,  with 
laborious  precision,  as  a  steam  whaler  from 
San  Francisco — the  Tiber  by  name,  bark- 
rigged,  seven  hundred  tons  burden,  Captain 
Henry  Ward  Beecher,  mate  Mr.  James  Boss 
Tweed.  They,  the  visitors,  were  the  officers 
of  the  relief -ship  on  the  lookout  for  castaways 
and  survivors. 

But  in  the  course  of  these  preliminaries  it 
became  necessary  to  restrain  Nickerson — not 
yet  wholly  recovered  from  a  recent  incursion 
into  the  store  of  Corean  champagne.  It 
presented  itself  to  his  consideration  as  facetious 
to  indulge  (when  speaking  to  the  Russians) 
in  strange  and  elaborate  distortions  of  speech. 

"And  she  sunk-avitch  in  a  hundred  fathom 
o'  water-owski. " 

" — All  on  board-erewski. " 

" — hell  of  dam'  bad  storm-onavna. " 

And  he  persisted  in  the  idiocy  till  Harden- 
berg  found  an  excuse  for  taking  him  aside 
and  cursing  him  into  a  realization  of  his  position. 

In  the  end — inevitably — the  schooner's  com 
pany  were  invited  to  dine  at  the  post. 

It  was  a  strange  affair — a  strange  scene. 
The  coast,  flat,  gray,  dreary  beyond  all  power 
of  expression,  lonesome  as  the  interstellar 


1 68  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

space,  and  quite  as  cold,  and  in  all  that  limitless 
vastness  of  the  World's  Edge,  two  specks — the 
hut,  its  three  windows  streaming  with  light, 
and  the  tiny  schooner  rocking  in  the  offing. 
Over  all  flared  the  pallid  incandescence  of  the 
auroras. 

The  Company  drank  steadily,  and  Strokher, 
listening  from  the  schooner's  quarterdeck, 
heard  the  shouting  and  the  songs  faintly  above 
the  wash  and  lapping  under  the  counter. 
Two  hours  had  passed  since  the  moment  he 
guessed  that  the  feast  had  been  laid.  A  third 
went  by.  He  grew  uneasy.  There  was  no 
cessation  of  the  noise  of  carousing.  He  even 
fancied  he  heard  pistol  shots.  Then  after  a 
long  time  the  noise  by  degrees  wore  down;  a 
long  silence  followed.  The  hut  seemed  desert 
ed  ;  nothing  stirred ;  another  hour  went  by. 

Then  at  length  Strokher  saw  a  figure  emerge 
from  the  door  of  the  hut  and  come  down  to 
the  shore.  It  was  Hardenberg.  Strokher  saw 
him  wave  his  arm  slowly,  now  to  the  left,  now 
to  the  right,  and  he  took  down  the  wig- wag  as 
follows :  * '  Stand— in — closer — we — have — the 
—skins." 


Ill 


DURING  the  course  of  the  next  few  days 
Strokher  heard  the  different  versions  of  the 
affair  in  the  hut  over  and  over  again  till  he 
knew  its  smallest  details.  He  learned  how  the 
"Boomskys"  fell  upon  Ryder's  champagne 
like  wolves  upon  a  wounded  buck,  how  they 
drank  it  from  "  enameled-ware "  coffee-cups, 
from  tin  dippers,  from  the  bottles  themselves; 
how  at  last  they  even  dispensed  with  the 
tedium  of  removing  the  corks  and  knocked  off 
the  heads  against  the  table-ledge  and  drank 
from  the  splintered  bottoms;  how  they  quar 
reled  over  the  lees  and  dregs,  how  ever  and 
always  fresh  supplies  were  forthcoming,  and 
how  at  last  Hardenberg,  Ally  Bazan  and  Slick 
Dick  stood  up  from  the  table  in  the  midst  of 
the  seven  inert  bodies ;  how  they  ransacked  the 
place  for  the  priceless  furs;  how  they  failed  to 
locate  them ;  how  the  conviction  grew  that  this 
was  the  wrong  place  after  all,  and  how  at  length 
Hardenberg  discovered  the  trap-door  that 
admitted  to  the  cellar,  where  in  the  dim  light 
of  the  uplifted  lanterns  they  saw,  corded  in 
169 


170  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

tiny  bales  and  packages,  the  costliest  furs  known 
to  commerce. 

Ally  Bazan  had  sobbed  in  his  excitement 
over  that  vision  and  did  not  regain  the  power 
of  articulate  speech  till  the  "loot"  was  safely 
stowed  in  the  'tween-decks  and  Hardenberg 
had  given  order  to  come  about. 

"Now,"  he  had  observed  dryly,  "now,  lads, 
it's  Hongkong — or  bust." 

The  tackle  had  fouled  aloft  and  the  jib  hung 
slatting  over  the  sprit  like  a  collapsed  balloon. 

"  Cast  off  up  there,  Nick  !"  called  Hardenberg 
from  the  wheel. 

Nickerson  swung  himself  into  the  rigging, 
crying  out  in  a  mincing  voice  as,  holding  to  a 
rope's  end,  he  swung  around  to  face  the  reced 
ing  hut:  "  By-bye-skevitch.  We've  had  such 
a  charming  evening.  Do  hope-sky  we'll  be 
able  to  come  again-off."  And  as  he  spoke  the 
lurch  of  the  Bertha  twitched  his  grip  from  the 
rope.  He  fell  some  thirty  feet  to  the  deck,  and 
his  head  carromed  against  an  iron  cleat  with  a 
resounding  crack. 

"Here's  luck,"  observed  Hardenberg, 
twelve  hours  later,  when  Slick  Dick,  sitting  on 
the  edge  of  his  bunk,  looked  stolidly  and  with 
fishy  eyes  from  face  to  face.  "  We  wa'n't  quite 
short-handed  enough,  it  seems." 

"  Dotty  for  fair.     Dotty  for  fair, "  exclaimed 


Dual  Personality  of  Slick  Dick  Nicker  son  171 

Ally  Bazan;  ''clean  off  'is  nut.  I  s'y,  Dick-ol'- 
chap,  wyke-up,  naow.  Buck  up.  Buck  up. 
'Ave  a  drink." 

But  Nickerson  could  only  nod  his  head  and 
murmur:  "A  few  more — consequently — and 
a  good  light—  Then  his  voice  died  down 

to  unintelligible  murmurs. 

"We'll  have  to  call  at  Juneau, "  decided 
Hardenberg  two  days  later.  "I  don't  figure 
on  navigating  this  'ere  bath-tub  to  no  Hong 
kong  whatsoever,  with  three  hands.  We  gotta 
pick  up  a  couple  o'  A.  B.'s  in  Juneau,  if  so  be 
we  can." 

"How  about  the  loot?"  objected  Strokher. 
"If  one  of  those  hands  gets  between  decks  he 
might  smell — a  sea-otter,  now.  I  put  it  to 
you  he  might." 

"My  son, "  said  Hardenberg,  "I've  handled 
A.  B.'s  before;"  and  that  settled  the  question. 

During  the  first  part  of  the  run  down,  Nicker 
son  gloomed  silently  over  the  schooner,  looking 
curiously  about  him,  now  at  his  comrades'  faces, 
now  at  the  tumbling  gray-green  seas,  now — • 
and  this  by  the  hour — at  his  owrn  hands.  He 
seemed  perplexed,  dazed,  trying  very  hard  to 
get  his  bearings.  But  by  and  by  he  appeared, 
little  by  little,  to  come  to  himself.  One  day 
he  pointed  to  the  rigging  with  an  unsteady 
forefinger,  then,  laying  the  same  finger  doubt- 


172  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

fully  upon  his  lips,  said  to  Strokher:  "A 
ship?" 

"  Quite  so,  quite  so,  me  boy. " 

"Yes,"  muttered  Nickerson  absently,  "a 
ship — of  course. " 

Hardenberg  expected  to  make  Juneau  on  a 
Thursday.  Wednesday  afternoon  Slick  Dick 
came  to  him.  He  seemed  never  more  master 
of  himself.  "How  did  I  come  aboard?"  he 
asked. 

Hardenberg  explained. 

"What  have  we  been  doing?" 

"Why,  don't  you  remember?"  continued 
Hardenberg.  He  outlined  the  voyage  in 
detail.  "Then  you  remember,"  he  went  on, 
"we  got  up  there  to  Point  Barrow  and  found 
where  the  Russian  fellows  had  their  post,  where 
they  caught  sea-otters,  and  we  went  ashore 
and  got  'em  all  full  and  lifted  all  the  skins  they 
had " 

"  '  Lifted'  ?     You  mean  stole  them. " 

"Come  here,"  said  the  other.  Encouraged 
by  Nickerson's  apparent  convalescence,  Har 
denberg  decided  that  the  concrete  evidence 
of  things  done  would  prove  effective.  He  led 
him  down  into  the  'tween-decks.  "See  now," 
he  said.  "  See  this  packing-case  " — he  pried  up 
a  board — "  see  these  'ere  skins.  Take  one  in  y'r 
hand.  Remember  how  we  found  'em  all  in 


Dual  Personality  of  Slick  Dick  Nicker  son  173 

the  cellar  and  hyked  'em  out  while  the 
beggars  slept?" 

"Stole  them?  You  say  we  got — that  is  you 
did — got  somebody  intoxicated  and  stole  their 
property,  and  now  you  are  on  your  way  to 
dispose  of  it." 

"Oh,  well,  if  you  want  to  put  it  thataway. 
Sure  we  did." 

"I  understand Well- —  Let's  go  back 

on  deck.  I  want  to  think  this  out. " 

The  Bertha  Millner  crept  into  the  harbour  of 
Juneau  in  a  fog,  with  ships'  bells  tolling  on 
every  side,  let  go  her  anchor  at  last  in  despera 
tion  and  lay  up  to  wait  for  the  lifting.  When 
this  came  the  Three  Crows  looked  at  one  another 
wide-eyed.  They  made  out  the  drenched 
town  and  the  dripping  hills  behind  it.  The 
quays,  the  custom  house,  the  one  hotel,  and 
the  few  ships  in  the  harbour.  There  were  a 
couple  of  whalers  from  'Frisco,  a  white,  showily 
painted  passenger  boat  from  the  same  port,  a 
Norwegian  bark,  and  a  freighter  from  Seattle 
grimy  with  coal-dust.  These,  however,  the 
Bertha's  company  ignored.  Another  boat 
claimed  all  their  attention.  In  the  fog  they 
had  let  go  not  a  pistol-shot  from  her  anchorage. 
She  lay  practically  beside  them.  She  was  the 
United  States  revenue  cutter  Bear. 

"But  so  long  as  they  can't  smell  sea-otter 


174  A-  Deal  in  Wheat 

skin, "  remarked  Hardenberg,  "I  don't  know 
that  we're  any  the  worse." 

"All  the  syme,"  observed  Ally  Bazan,  "I 
don't  want  to  lose  no  bloomin'  tyme  a-pecking 
up  aour  bloomin'  A.  B.'s. " 

"I'll  stay  aboard  and  tend  the  baby,"  said 
Hardenberg  with  a  wink.  "You  two  move 
along  ashore  and  get  what  you  can — Scoovies 
for  choice.  Take  Slick  Dick  with  you.  I 
reckon  a  change  o'  air  might  buck  him  up." 

When  the  three  had  gone,  Hardenberg, 
after  writing  up  the  painfully  doctored  log,  set 
to  work  to  finish  a  task  on  which  the  adventurers 
had  been  engaged  in  their  leisure  moments  since 
leaving  Point  Barrow.  This  was  the  counting 
and  sorting  of  the  skins.  The  packing-case 
had  been  broken  open,  and  the  scanty  but 
precious  contents  littered  an  improvised  table 
in  the  hold.  Pen  in  hand,  Hardenberg 
counted  and  ciphered  and  counted  again.  He 
could  not  forbear  a  chuckle  when  the  net  result 
was  reached.  The  lot  of  the  skins — the  pelt  of 
the  sea-otter  is  ridiculously  small  in  proportion 
to  its  value — was  no  heavy  load  for  the  average 
man.  But  Hardenberg  knew  that  once  the 
"loot"  was  safely  landed  at  the  Hongkong 
pierhead  the  Three  Crows  would  share  between 
them  close  upon  ten  thousand  dollars.  Even — 
if  they  had  luck,  and  could  dispose  of  the  skins, 


Dual  Personality  of  Slick  Dick  Nicker  son  175 

singly  or  in  small  lots — that  figure  might  be 
doubled. 

"And  I  call  it  a  neat  turn,"  observed  Har- 
denberg.  He  was  aroused  by  the  noise  of 
hurried  feet  upon  the  deck,  and  there  was  that 
in  their  sound  that  brought  him  upright  in  a 
second,  hand  on  hip.  Then,  after  a  second,  he 
jumped  out  on  deck  to  meet  Ally  Bazan  and 
Strokher,  who  had  just  scrambled  over  the  rail. 

"Bust.  B-u-s-t!"  remarked  the  English 
man. 

"  'Ere's  'ell  to  pay,"  cried  Ally  Bazan  in  a 
hoarse  whisper,  glancing  over  at  the  revenue 
cutter. 

"Where's  Nickerson?"  demanded  Harden- 
berg. 

' '  That's  it , "  answered  the  colonial.  ' '  That's 
where  it's  'ell.  Listen  naow.  He  goes  ashore 
along  o'  us,  quiet  and  peaceable  like,  never 
battin'  a  eye,  we  givin'  him  a  bit  o'  jolly,  y' 
know,  to  keep  him  chirked  up  as  ye  might  s'y. 
But  so  soon  as  ever  he  sets  foot  on  shore,  abaout 
faice  he  gaoes,  plumb  into  the  Custom's  orfice. 
I  s'ys,  'Wot  all  naaw,  messmite  ?  Come  along 
aout  o'  that.'  But  he  turns  on  me  like  a 
bloomin'  babby  an  s'ys  he:  'Hands  orf,  wretch  !' 
Ay,  them's  just  his  words.  Just  like  that, 
'Hands  orf,  wretch  !'  And  then  he  nips  into 
the  orfice  an'  marches  fair  up  to  the  desk  an' 


176  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

sy's  like  this — we  heerd  him,  havin'  followed 
on  to  the  door — he  s'ys,  just  like  this : 

"  'Orfficer,  I  am  a  min'ster  o'  the  gospel, 
o'  the  Methodis'  denomineye-tion,  an'  I'm 
deteyined  agin  my  will  along  o'  a  pirate  ship 
which  has  robbed  certain  parties  o'  val-able 
goods.  Which  syme  I'm  pre-pared  to  attest 
afore  a  no 'try  publick,  an'  lodge  informeye-tion 
o'  crime.  An','  s'ys  he,  'I  demand  the  protec 
tion  o'  the  authorities  an'  arsk  to  be  directed 
to  the  American  consul.' 

"S'y,  we  never  wyted  to  hear  no  more,  but 
hyked  awye  hot  foot.  S'y,  wot  all  now.  Oh, 
mee  Gord !  eyen't  it  a  rum  gao  for  fair  ?  S'y, 
let's  get  aout  o'  here,  Hardy,  dear. " 

"Look  there,"  said  Hardenberg,  jerking 
his  head  toward  the  cutter,  "how  far'd  we  get 
before  the  customs  would  'a'  passed  the  tip  to 
her  and  she'd  started  to  overhaul  us?  That's 
what  they  feed  her  for — to  round  up  the  likes  o' 
us." 

"We  got  to  do  something  rather  soon,"  put 
in  Strokher.  "Here  comes  the  custom  house 
dinghy  now." 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  a  boat  was  putting  off 
from  the  dock.  At  her  stern  fluttered  the 
custom  house  flag. 

" Bitched— bitched  for  fair!"  cried  Ally 
Bazan. 


Dual  Personality  of  Slick  Dick  Nicker  son  177 

' '  Quick,  now  ! ' '  exclaimed  Hardenberg.  ' '  On 
the  jump !  Overboard  with  that  loot ! — or 
no.  Steady!  That  won't  do.  There's  that 
dam'  cutter.  They'd  see  it  go.  Here ! — into 
the  galley.  There's  a  fire  in  the  stove.  Get  a 
move  on !" 

"Wot!"  wailed  Ally  Bazan.  "Burn  the 
little  joker.  Gord,  I  can't,  Hardy,  I  can't. 
It's  agin  human  nature." 

"You  can  do  time  in  San  Quentin,  then,  for 
felony,"  retorted  Strokher  as  he  and  Harden 
berg  dashed  by  him,  their  arms  full  of  the 
skins.  "You  can  do  time  in  San  Quentin  else. 
Make  your  choice.  I  put  it  to  you  as  between 
man  and  man." 

With  set  teeth,  and  ever  and  again  glancing 
over  the  rail  at  the  oncoming  boat,  the  two  fed 
their  fortune  to  the  fire.  The  pelts,  partially 
cured  and  still  fatty,  blazed  like  crude  oil,  the 
hair  crisping,  the  hides  melting  into  rivulets  of 
grease.  For  a  minute  the  schooner  reeked  of 
the  smell  and  a  stifling  smoke  poured  from  the 
galley  stack.  Then  the  embers  of  the  fire 
guttered  and  a  long  whiff  of  sea  wind  blew  away 
the  reek.  A  single  skin,  fallen  in  the  scramble, 
still  remained  on  the  floor  of  the  galley.  Har 
denberg  snatched  it  up,  tossed  it  into  the 
flames  and  clapped  the  door  to.  "  Now,  let 
him  squeal, "  he  declared.  "  You  fellows,  when 


178  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

that  boat  gets  here,  let  me  talk;  keep  your 
mouths  shut  or,  byvGod,  we'll  all  wear  stripes. " 

The  Three  Crows  watched  the  boat's  approach 
in  a  silence  broken  only  once  by  a  long  whimper 
from  Ally  Bazan.  "An'  it  was  a-workin'  out 
as  lovely  as  Billy-oh,"  he  said,  "till  that  syme 
underbred  costermonger's  swipe  remembered  he 
was  Methody — an'  him  who,  only  a  few  d'ys 
back,  went  raound  s'yin'  'scrag  the  "  Boom- 
skys"  !'  A  couple  o'  thousand  pounds  gone  as 
quick  as  look  at  it.  Oh,  I  eyn't  never  goin'  to 
git  over  this. " 

The  boat  came  up  and  the  Three  Crows  were 
puzzled  to  note  that  no  brass-buttoned  person 
age  sat  in  the  stern-sheets,  no  harbour  police 
glowered  at  them  from  the  bow,  no  officer  of 
the  law  fixed  them  with  the  eye  of  suspicion. 
The  boat  was  manned  only  by  a  couple  of 
freight-handlers  in  woolen  Jerseys,  upon  the 
breasts  of  which  were  affixed  the  two  letters, 
"C.  H." 

"Say,"  called  one  of  the  freight-handlers, 
"  is  this  the  Bertha  Millner?  " 

"Yes,"  answered  Hardenberg,  his  voice  at 
a  growl.  "An'  what  might  you  want  with  her, 
my  friend?" 

"Well,  look  here,"  said  the  other,  "one  of 
your  hands  came  ashore  mad  as  a  coot  and 
broke  into  the  house  of  the  American  Consul, 


Dual  Personality  of  Slick  Dick  Nicker  son  179 

and  resisted  arrest  and  raised  hell  generally. 
The  inspector  says  you  got  to  send  a  provost 
guard  or  something  ashore  to  take  him  off. 
There's  been  several  mix-ups  among  ships' 
crews  lately  and  the  town— 

The  tide  drifted  the  boat  out  of  hearing,  and 
Hardenberg  sat  down  on  the  capstan  head, 
turning  his  back  to  his  comrades.  There  was 
a  long  silence.  Then  he  said: 

"  Boys,  let's  go  home.  I— I  want  to  have  a 
talk  with  President  Ryder." 


THE   SHIP  THAT  SAW  A  GHOST 


THE   SHIP   THAT   SAW  A   GHOST 


TTERY  much  of  this  story  must  remain 
untold,  for  the  reason  that  if  it  were 
definitely  known  what  business  I  had  aboard 
the  tramp  steam-freighter  Glarus,  three  hundred 
miles  off  the  South  American  coast  on  a  certain 
summer's  day,  some  few  years  ago,  I  would  very 
likely  be  obliged  to  answer  a  great  many  per 
sonal  and  direct  questions  put  by  fussy  and 
impertinent  experts  in  maritime  law  —  who  are 
paid  to  be  inquisitive.  Also,  I  would  get  "Ally 
Bazan,  "  Strokher  and  Hardenberg  into  trouble. 

Suppose  on  that  certain  summer's  day, 
you  had  asked  of  Lloyds'  agency  where  the 
Glarus  was,  and  what  was  her  destination  and 
cargo.  You  would  have  been  told  that  she 
was  twenty  days  out  from  Callao,  bound  north 
to  San  Francisco  in  ballast;  that  she  had  been 
spoken  by  the  bark  Medea  and  the  steamer 
Benevento;  that  she  was  reported  to  have  blown 
out  a  cylinder  head,  but  being  manageable  was 
proceeding  on  her  way  under  sail. 

That  is  what  Lloyds  would  have  answered. 

If  you  know  something  of  the  ways  of  ships 
and  what  is  expected  of  them,  you  will  under- 
183 


1 84  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

stand  that  the  Glarus,  to  be  some  half  a  dozen 
hundred  miles  south  of  where  Lloyds'  would 
have  her,  and  to  be  still  going  south,  under  full 
steam,  was  a  scandal  that  would  have  made 
her  brothers  and  sisters  ostracize  her  finally 
and  forever. 

And  that  is  curious,  too.  Humans  may 
indulge  in  vagaries  innumerable,  and  may  go 
far  afield  in  the  way  of  lying;  but  a  ship  may 
not  so  much  as  quibble  without  suspicion. 
The  least  lapse  of  ' 'regularity,"  the  least  diffi 
culty  in  squaring  performance  with  intuition, 
and  behold  she  is  on  the  black  list,  and  her 
captain,  owners,  officers,  agents  and  consignors, 
and  even  supercargoes,  are  asked  to  explain. 

And  the  Glarus  was  already  on  the  black  list. 
From  the  beginning  her  stars  had  been  malign. 
As  the  Breda,  she  had  first  lost  her  reputation, 
seduced  into  a  filibustering  escapade  down  the 
South  American  coast,  where  in  the  end  a  plain- 
clothes  United  States  detective — that  is  to  say, 
a  revenue  cutter — arrested  her  off  Buenos  Ayres 
and  brought  her  home,  a  prodigal  daughter, 
besmirched  and  disgraced. 

After  that  she  was  in  some  dreadful  black- 
birding  business  in  a  far  quarter  of  the  South 
Pacific;  and  after  that — her  name  changed 
finally  to  the  Glarus — poached  seals  for  a 
syndicate  of  Dutchmen  who  lived  in  Tacoma, 


The  Ship  that  Saw  a  Ghost  185 

and  who  afterward  built  a  club-house  out  of 
what  she  earned. 

And  after  that  we  got  her. 

We  got  her,  I  say,  through  Ryder's  South 
Pacific  Exploitation  Company.  The  "Presi 
dent"  had  picked  out  a  lovely  little  deal  for 
Hardenberg,  Strokher  and  Ally  Bazan  (the 
Three  Black  Crows),  which  he  swore  would 
make  them  "  independent  rich"  the  rest  of  their 
respective  lives.  It  is  a  promising  deal  (B.  300 
it  is  on  Ryder's  map),  and  if  you  want  to  know 
more  about  it  you  may  write  to  ask  Ryder 
what  B.  300  is.  If  he  chooses  to  tell  you,  that 
is  his  affair. 

For  B.  300 — let  us  confess  it — is,  as  Harden 
berg  puts  it,  as  crooked  as  a  dog's  hind  leg.  It 
is  as  risky  as  barratry.  If  you  pull  it  off  you 
may — after  paying  Ryder  his  share — divide 
sixty-five,  or  possibly  sixty-seven,  thousand 
dollars  between  you  and  your  associates.  If 
you  fail,  and  you  are  perilously  like  to  fail,  you 
will  be  sure  to  have  a  man  or  two  of  your  com 
panions  shot,  maybe  yourself  obliged  to  pistol 
certain  people,  and  in  the  end  fetch  up  at  Tahiti, 
prisoner  in  a  French  patrol-boat. 

Observe  that  B.  300  is  spoken  of  as  still  open. 
It  is  so,  for  the  reason  that  the  Three  Black 
Crows  did  not  pull  it  off.  It  still  stands  marked 
up  in  red  ink  on  the  map  that  hangs  over 


1 86  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

Ryder's  desk  in  the  San  Francisco  office;  and 
any  one  can  have  a  chance  at  it  who  will  meet 
Cyrus  Ryder's  terms.  Only  he  can't  get  the 
Glarus  for  the  attempt. 

For  the  trip  to  the  island  after  B.  300  was  the 
last  occasion  on  which  the  Glarus  will  smell 
blue  water  or  taste  the  trades.  She  will  never 
clear  again.  She  is  lumber. 

And  yet  the  Glarus  on  this  very  blessed  day 
of  1902  is  riding  to  her  buoys  off  Sausalito  in 
San  Francisco  Bay,  complete  in  every  detail 
(bar  a  broken  propeller  shaft),  not  a  rope 
missing,  not  a  screw  loose,  not  a  plank  started — 
a  perfectly  equipped  steam-freighter. 

But  you  may  go  along  the  "Front"  in  San 
Francisco  from  Fisherman's  Wharf  to  the 
China  steamships'  docks  and  shake  your  dollars 
under  the  seamen's  noses,  and  if  you  so  much 
as  whisper  Glarus  they  will  edge  suddenly  off 
and  look  at  you  with  scared  suspicion,  and 
then,  as  like  as  not,  walk  away  without  another 
word.  No  pilot  will  take  the  Glarus  out;  no 
captain  will  navigate  her;  no  stoker  will  feed 
her  fires;  no  sailor  will  walk  her  decks.  The 
Glarus  is  suspect.  She  has  seen  a  ghost. 

It  happened  on  our  voyage  to  the  island  aftef 
this  same  B.  300.  We  had  stood  well  off  from 
shore  for  day  after  day,  and  Hardenberg  had 


The  Ship  that  Saw  a  Ghost  187 

shaped  our  course  so  far  from  the  track  of 
navigation  that  since  the  Benevento  had  hulled 
down  and  vanished  over  the  horizon  no  stitch 
of  canvas  nor  smudge  of  smoke  had  we  seen. 
We  had  passed  the  equator  long  since,  and 
would  fetch  a  long  circuit  to  the  southard,  and 
bear  up  against  the  island  by  a  circuitous 
route.  This  to  avoid  being  spoken.  It  was 
tremendously  essential  that  the  Glarus  should 
not  be  spoken. 

I  suppose,  no  doubt,  that  it  was  the 
knowledge  of  our  isolation  that  impressed 
me  with  the  dreadful  remoteness  of  our 
position.  Certainly  the  sea  in  itself  looks  no 
different  at  a  thousand  than  at  a  hundred 
miles  from  shore.  But  as  day  after  day  I  came 
out  on  deck  at  noon,  after  ascertaining  our 
position  on  the  chart  (a  mere  pin-point  in  a 
reach  of  empty  paper),  the  sight  of  the  ocean 
weighed  down  upon  me  with  an  infinitely  great 
awesomeness — and  I  was  no  new  hand  to  the 
high  seas  even  then. 

But  at  such  times  the  Glarus  seemed  to  me 
to  be  threading  a  loneliness  beyond  all  worlds 
and  beyond  all  conception  desolate.  Even  in 
more  populous  waters,  when  no  sail  notches  the 
line  of  the  horizon,  the  propinquity  of  one's 
kind  is  nevertheless  a  thing  understood,  and 
to  an  unappreciated  degree  comforting.  Here, 


1 88  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

however,  I  knew  we  were  out,  far  out  in  the 
desert.  Never  a  keel  for  years  upon  years 
before  us  had  parted  these  waters ;  never  a  sail 
had  bellied  to  these  winds.  Perfunctorily, 
day  in  and  day  out  we  turned  our  eyes  through 
long  habit  toward  the  horizon.  But  we 
knew,  before  the  look,  that  the  searching  would 
be  bootless.  Forever  and  forever,  under  the 
pitiless  sun  and  cold  blue  sky  stretched  the 
indigo  of  the  ocean  floor.  The  ether  between 
the  planets  can  be  no  less  empty,  no  less  void. 

I  never,  till  that  moment,  could  have  so 
much  as  conceived  the  imagination  of  such 
loneliness,  such  utter  stagnant  abomination 
of  desolation.  In  an  open  boat,  bereft  of 
comrades,  I  should  have  gone  mad  in  thirty 
minutes. 

I  remember  to  have  approximated  the 
impression  of  such  empty  immensity  only 
once  before,  in  my  younger  days,  when  I  lay 
on  my  back  on  a  treeless,  bushless  mountain 
side  and  stared  up  into  the  sky  for  the  better 
part  of  an  hour. 

You  probably  know  the  trick.  If  you 
do  not,  you  must  understand  that  if  you 
look  up  at  the  blue,  long  enough,  the  flat 
ness  of  the  thing  begins  little  by  little  to 
expand,  to  give  here  and  there;  and  the  eye 
travels  on  and  on  and  up  and  up,  till  at  length 


The  Ship  that  Saw  a  Ghost  189 

(well  for  you  that  it  lasts  but  the  fraction  of 
a  second),  you  all  at  once  see  space.  You 
generally  stop  there  and  cry  out,  and — your 
hands  over  your  eyes — are  only  too  glad  to 
grovel  close  to  the  good  old  solid  earth  again. 
Just  as  I,  so  often  on  short  voyage,  was  glad 
to  wrench  my  eyes  away  from  that  horrid 
vacancy,  to  fasten  them  upon  our  sailless 
masts  and  stack,  or  to  lay  my  grip  upon  the 
sooty  smudged  taffrail  of  the  only  thing  that 
stood  between  me  and  the  Outer  Dark. 

For  we  had  come  at  last  to  that  region  of 
the  Great  Seas  where  no  ship  goes,  the  silent 
sea  of  Coleridge  and  the  Ancient  One,  the 
unplumbed,  untracked,  uncharted  Dreadful- 
ness,  primordial,  hushed,  and  we  were  as  much 
alone  as  a  grain  of  star-dust  whirling  in  the 
empty  space  beyond  Uranus  and  the  ken  of 
the  greater  telescopes. 

So  the  Glarus  plodded  and  churned  her  way 
onward.  Every  day  and  all  day  the  same 
pale -blue  sky  and  the  unwinking  sun  bent 
over  that  moving  speck.  Every  day  and  all 
day  the  same  black-blue  water- world,  untouched 
by  any  known  wind,  smooth  as  a  slab  of  syenite, 
colourful  as  an  opal,  stretched  out  and  around 
and  beyond  and  before  and  behind  us,  forever, 
illimitable,  empty.  Every  day  the  smoke  of 
our  fires  veiled  the  streaked  whiteness  of  our 


A  Deal  in  Wheat 


wake.  Every  day  Hardenberg  (our  skipper) 
at  noon  pricked  a  pin-hole  in  the  chart  that 
hung  in  the  wheel-house,  and  that  showed  we 
were  so  much  farther  into  the  wilderness. 
Every  day  the  world  of  men,  of  civilization, 
of  newspapers,  policemen  and  street-railways 
receded,  and  we  steamed  on  alone,  lost  and 
forgotten  in  that  silent  sea. 

"Jolly  lot  o'  room  to  turn  raound  in," 
observed  Ally  Bazan,  the  colonial,  "withaout 
steppin'  on  y'r  neighbour's  toes." 

1  'We're  clean,  clean  out  o'  the  track  o' 
navigation,"  Hardenberg  told  him.  "An'  a 
blessed  good  thing  for  us,  too.  Nobody  ever 
comes  down  into  these  waters.  Ye  couldn't 
pick  no  course  here.  Everything  leads  to 
nowhere." 

"Might  as  well  be  in  a  bally  balloon,"  said 
Strokher. 

I  shall  not  tell  of  the  nature  of  the  venture 
on  which  the  Glarus  was  bound,  further  than 
to  say  it  was  not  legitimate.  It  had  to  do 
with  an  ill  thing  done  more  than  two  centu 
ries  ago.  There  was  money  in  the  venture, 
but  it  was  not  to  be  gained  by  a  violation 
of  metes  and  bounds  which  are  better  left 
intact. 

The  island  toward  which  we  were  heading 
is  associated  in  the  minds  of  men  with  a  Horror. 


The  Ship  that  Saw  a  Ghost  191 

A  ship  had  called  there  once,  two  hundred 
years  in  advance  of  the  Glarus — a  ship  not 
much  unlike  the  crank  high-prowed  caravel 
of  Hudson,  and  her  company  had  landed,  and 
having  accomplished  the  evil  they  had  set 
out  to  do,  made  shift  to  sail  away.  And  then, 
just  after  the  palms  of  the  island  had  sunk 
from  sight  below  the  water's  edge,  the  unspeak 
able  had  happened.  The  Death  that  was  not 
Death  had  arisen  from  out  the  sea  and  stood 
before  the  ship,  and  over  it,  and  the  blight  of 
the  thing  lay  along  the  decks  like  mould,  and 
the  ship  sweated  in  the  terror  of  that  which  is 
yet  without  a  name. 

Twenty  men  died  in  the  first  week,  all 
but  six  in  the  second.  These  six,  with 
the  shadow  of  insanity  upon  them,  made 
out  to  launch  a  boat,  returned  to  the 
island  and  died  there,  after  leaving  a  record 
of  what  had  happened. 

The  six  left  the  ship  exactly  as  she  was, 
sails  all  set,  lanterns  all  lit — left  her  in  the 
shadow  of  the  Death  that  was  not  Death. 

She  stood  there,  becalmed,  and  watched 
them  go.  She  was  never  heard  of  again. 

Or  was  she — well,  that's  as  may  be. 

But  the  main  point  of  the  whole  affair,  to 
my  notion,  has  always  been  this.  The  ship 
was  the  last  friend  of  those  six  poor  wretches 


192  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

who  made  back  for  the  island  with  their  poor 
chests  of  plunder.  She  was  their  guardian, 
as  it  were,  would  have  defended  and  befriended 
them  to  the  last ;  and  also  we,  the  Three  Black 
Crows  and  myself,  had  no  right  under  heaven, 
nor  before  the  law  of  men,  to  come  prying  and 
peeping  into  this  business — into  this  affair  of 
the  dead  and  buried  past.  There  was  sacrilege 
in  it.  We  were  no  better  than  body-snatchers. 

When  I  heard  the  others  complaining  of  the 
loneliness  of  our  surroundings,  I  said  nothing 
at  first.  I  was  no  sailor  man,  and  I  was  on 
board  only  by  tolerance.  But  I  looked  again 
at  the  maddening  sameness  of  the  horizon — 
the  same  vacant,  void  horizon  that  we  had 
seen  now  for  sixteen  days  on  end,  and  felt  in 
my  wits  and  in  my  nerves  that  same  formless 
rebellion  and  protest  such  as  comes  when  the 
same  note  is  reiterated  over  and  over  again. 

It  may  seem  a  little  thing  that  the  mere  fact 
of  meeting  with  no  other  ship  should  have 
ground  down  the  edge  of  the  spirit.  But  let 
the  incredulous — bound  upon  such  a  hazard 
as  ours — sail  straight  into  nothingness  for 
sixteen  days  on  end,  seeing  nothing  but  the 
sun,  hearing  nothing  but  the  thresh  of  his 
own  screw,  and  then  put  the  question. 

And  yet,  of  all  things,  we  desired  no  company. 


The  Ship  that  Saw  a  Ghost  193 

Stealth  was  our  one  great  aim.  But  I  think 
there  were  moments — toward  the  last — when 
the  Three  Crows  would  have  welcomed  even 
a  cruiser. 

Besides,  there  was  more  cause  for  depres 
sion,  after  all,  than  mere  isolation. 

On  the  seventh  day  Hardenberg  and  I  were 
forward  by  the  cat-head,  adjusting  the  grain 
with  some  half -formed  intent  of  spearing  the 
porpoises  that  of  late  had  begun  to  appear 
under  our  bows,  and  Hardenberg  had  been 
computing  the  number  of  days  we  were  yet 
to  run. 

"We  are  some  five  hundred  odd  miles  off 
that  island  by  now,"  he  said,  "and  she's  doing 
her  thirteen  knots  handsome.  All's  well  so 
far — but  do  you  know,  I'd  just  as  soon  raise 
that  point  o'  land  as  soon  as  convenient." 

"How  so?"  said  I,  bending  on  the  line. 
"Expect  some  weather?" 

"Mr.  Dixon, "  said  he,  giving  me  a  curious 
glance,  "the  sea  is  a  queer  proposition,  put 
it  any  ways.  I've  been  a  seafarin'  man  since 
I  was  big  as  a  minute,  and  I  know  the  sea, 
and  what's  more,  the  Feel  o'  the  sea.  Now, 
look  out  yonder.  Nothin',  hey?  Nothin'  but 
the  same  ol'  skyline  we've  watched  all  the  way 
out.  The  glass  is  as  steady  as  a  steeple,  and 
this  ol'  hooker,  I  reckon,  is  as  sound  as  the 


1 94  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

day  she  went  off  the  ways.  But  just  the  same 
if  I  were  to  home  now,  a-foolin'  about  Gloucester 
way  in  my  little  dough-dish — d'ye  know  what  ? 
I'd  put  into  port.  I  sure  would.  Because 
why?  Because  I  got  the  Feel  o'  the  Sea,  Mr. 
Dixon.  I  got  the  Feel  o'  the  Sea." 

I  had  heard  old  skippers  say  something  of 
this  before,  and  I  cited  to  Hardenberg  the 
experience  of  a  skipper  captain  I  once  knew 
who  had  turned  turtle  in  a  calm  sea  off  Trin- 
comalee.  I  ask  him  what  this  Feel  of  the  Sea 
was  warning  him  against  just  now  (for  on  the 
high  sea  any  premonition  is  a  premonition  of 
evil,  not  of  good).  But  he  was  not  explicit. 

"I  don't  know,"  he  answered  moodily, 
and  as  if  in  great  perplexity,  coiling  the  rope 
as  he  spoke.  "I  don't  know.  There's  some 
blame  thing  or  other  close  to  us,  I'll  bet  a  hat. 
I  don't  know  the  name  of  it,  but  there's  a 
big  Bird  in  the  air,  just  out  of  sight  som'eres, 
and,"  he  suddenly  exclaimed,  smacking  his 
knee  and  leaning  forward,  "I — don't — like — 
it — one — dam' — bit. " 

The  same  thing  came  up  in  our  talk  in  the 
cabin  that  night,  after  the  dinner  was  taken 
off  and  we  settled  down  to  tobacco.  Only, 
at  this  time,  Hardenberg  was  on  duty  on  the 
bridge.  It  was  Ally  Bazan  who  spoke  instead. 

"Seems   to   me,"   he   hazarded,    "as   haow 


The  Ship  that  Saw  a  Ghost  195 

they's  somethin'  or  other  a-goin'  to  bump  up 
pretty  blyme  soon.  I  shouldn't  be  surprised, 
naow,  y'know,  if  we  piled  her  up  on  some  bally 
uncharted  reef  along  o'  to-night  and  went 
strite  daown  afore  we'd  had  a  bloomin'  charnce 
to  s'y  'So  long,  gen'lemen  all." 

He  laughed  as  he  spoke,  but  when,  just  at 
that  moment,  a  pan  clattered  in  the  galley, 
he  jumped  suddenly  with  an  oath,  and  looked 
hard  about  the  cabin. 

Then  Strokher  confessed  to  a  sense  of  dis 
tress  also.  He'd  been  having  it  since  day 
before  yesterday,  it  seemed. 

"And  I  put  it  to  you  the  glass  is 
lovely,"  he  said,  "so  it's  no  blow.  I  guess," 
he  continued,  "we're  all  a  bit  seedy  and 
ship-sore." 

And  whether  or  not  this  talk  worked  upon 
my  own  nerves,  or  whether  in  very  truth  the 
Feel  of  the  Sea  had  found  me  also,  I  do  not 
know;  but  I  do  know  that  after  dinner  that 
night,  just  before  going  to  bed,  a  queer  sense 
of  apprehension  came  upon  me,  and  that  when 
I  had  come  to  my  stateroom,  after  my  turn 
upon  deck,  I  became  furiously  angry  with 
nobody  in  particular,  because  I  could  not  at 
once  find  the  matches.  But  here  was  a  differ 
ence.  The  other  man  had  been  merely  vaguely 
uncomfortable . 


196  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

I  could  put  a  name  to  my  uneasiness.  I 
felt  that  we  were  being  watched. 

It  was  a  strange  ship's  company  we  made 
after  that.  I  speak  only  of  the  Crows  and 
myself.  We  carried  a  scant  crew  of  stokers, 
and  there  was  also  a  chief  engineer.  But  we 
saw  so  little  of  him  that  he  did  not  count. 
The  Crows  and  I  gloomed  on  the  quarterdeck 
from  dawn  to  dark,  silent,  irritable,  working 
upon  each  other's  nerves  till  the  creak  of  a 
block  would  make  a  man  jump  like  cold  steel 
laid  to  his  flesh.  We  quarreled  over  absolute 
nothings,  glowered  at  each  other  for  half  a 
word,  and  each  one  of  us,  at  different  times, 
was  at  some  pains  to  declare  that  never  in  the 
course  of  his  career  had  he  been  associated 
with  such  a  disagreeable  trio  of  brutes.  Yet 
we  were  always  together,  and  sought  each 
other's  company  with  painful  insistence. 

Only  once  were  we  all  agreed,  and  that  was 
when  the  cook,  a  Chinaman,  spoiled  a  certain 
batch  of  biscuits.  Unanimously  we  fell  foul 
of  the  creature  with  so  much  vociferation  as 
fishwives  till  he  fled  the  cabin  in  actual  fear 
of  mishandling,  leaving  us  suddenly  seized 
with  noisy  hilarity — for  the  first  time  in  a 
week.  Hardenberg  proposed  a  round  of  drinks 
from  our  single  remaining  case  of  beer.  We 


The  Ship  that  Saw  a  Ghost  197 

stood  up  and  formed  an  Elk's  chain  and  then 
drained  our  glasses  to  each  other's  health 
with  profound  seriousness. 

That  same  evening,  I  remember,  we  all  sat 
on  the  quarterdeck  till  late  and — oddly  enough 
— related  each  one  his  life's  history  up  to  date; 
and  then  went  down  to  the  cabin  for  a  game 
of  euchre  before  turning  in. 

We  had  left  Strokher  on  the  bridge — it  was 
his  watch — and  had  forgotten  all  about  him 
in  the  interest  of  the  game,  when — I  suppose 
it  was  about  one  in  the  morning — I  heard  him 
whistle  long  and  shrill.  I  laid  down  my  cards 
and  said: 

"Hark!" 

In  the  silence  that  followed  we  heard  at  first 
only  the  muffled  lope  of  our  engines,  the 
cadenced  snorting  of  the  exhaust,  and  the 
ticking  of  Hardenberg's  big  watch  in  his 
waistcoat  that  he  had  hung  by  the  arm-hole 
to  the  back  of  his  chair.  Then  from  the 
bridge,  above  our  deck,  prolonged,  intoned— 
a  wailing  cry  in  the  night — came  Strokher 's 
voice : 

"Sailoh-h-h." 

And  the  cards  fell  from  our  hands,  and,  like 
men  turned  to  stone,  we  sat  looking  at  each 
other  across  the  soiled  red  cloth  for  what 
seemed  an  immeasurably  long  minute. 


198  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

Then  stumbling  and  swearing,  in  a  hysteria 
of  hurry,  we  gained  the  deck. 

There  was  a  moon,  very  low  and  reddish, 
but  no  wind.  The  sea  beyond  the  taffrail 
was  as  smooth  as  lava,  and  so  still  that  the 
swells  from  the  cutwater  of  the  Glarus  did  not 
break  as  they  rolled  away  from  the  bows. 

I  remember  that  I  stood  staring  and  blinking 
at  the  empty  ocean — where  the  moonlight 
lay  like  a  painted  stripe  reaching  to  the  horizon 
— stupid  and  frowning,  till  Hardenberg,  who 
had  gone  on  ahead,  cried: 

"Not  here— on  the  bridge!" 

We  joined  Strokher,  and  as  I  came  up  the 
others  were  asking: 

"Where?     Where?" 

And  there,  before  he  had  pointed,  I  saw — 
we  all  of  us  saw—  And  I  heard  Harden- 
berg's  teeth  come  together  like  a  spring  trap, 
while  Ally  Bazan  ducked  as  though  to  a  blow, 
muttering : 

"  Gord  'a'  mercy,  what  nyme  do  ye  put  to 
a  ship  like  that?" 

And  after  that  no  one  spoke  for  a  long 
minute,  and  we  stood  there,  moveless  black 
shadows,  huddled  together  for  the  sake  of  the 
blessed  elbow  touch  that  means  so  incalculably 
much,  looking  off  over  our  port  quarter. 

For  the  ship  that  we  saw  there — oh,  she 


The  Ship  that  Saw  a  Ghost  199 

not  a  half-mile  distant — was  unlike  any  ship 
known  to  present  day  construction. 

She  was  short,  and  high-pooped,  and  her 
stern,  which  was  turned  a  little  toward  us, 
we  could  see,  was  set  with  curious  windows, 
not  unlike  a  house.  And  on  either  side  of  this 
stern  were  two  great  iron  cressets  such  as  once 
were  used  to  burn  signal-fires  in.  She  had 
three  masts  with  mighty  yards  swung  'thwart 
ship,  but  bare  of  all  sails  save  a  few  rotting 
streamers.  Here  and  there  about  her  a  tangled 
mass  of  rigging  drooped  and  sagged. 

And  there  she  lay,  in  the  red  eye  of  the 
setting  moon,  in  that  solitary  ocean,  shadowy, 
antique,  forlorn,  a  thing  the  most  abandoned, 
the  most  sinister  I  ever  remember  to  have  seen. 

Then  Strokher  began  to  explain  volubly 
and  with  many  repetitions. 

"A  derelict,  of  course.  I  was  asleep;  yes,  I 
was  asleep.  Gross  neglect  of  duty.  I  say  I 
was  asleep — on  watch.  And  we  worked  up 
to  her.  When  I  woke,  why — you  see,  when  I 
woke,  there  she  was, "  he  gave  a  weak  little 
laugh,  "and — and  now,  why,  there  she  is,  you 
see.  I  turned  around  and  saw  her  sudden 
like — when  I  woke  up,  that  is." 

He  laughed  again,  and  as  he  laughed  the 
engines  far  below  our  feet  gave  a  sudden  hic 
cough.  Something  crashed  and  struck  the 


200  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

ship's  sides  till  we  lurched  as  we  stood. 
There  was  a  shriek  of  steam,  a  shout — and 
then  silence. 

The  noise  of  the  machinery  ceased ;  the  Glarus 
slid  through  the  still  water,  moving  only  by 
her  own  decreasing  momentum. 

Hardenberg  sang,  " Stand  by!"  and  called 
down  the  tube  to  the  engine-room. 

"What's  up?" 

I  was  standing  close  enough  to  him  to  hear 
the  answer  in  a  small,  faint  voice: 

"Shaft  gone,  sir." 

"Broke?" 

"Yes,  sir." 

Hardenberg  faced  about. 

"Come  below.  We  must  talk."  I  do  not 
think  any  of  us  cast  a  glance  at  the  Other  Ship 
again.  Certainly  I  kept  my  eyes  away  from 
her.  But  as  we  started  down  the  companion- 
way  I  laid  my  hand  on  Strokher's  shoulder. 
The  rest  were  ahead.  I  looked  him  straight 
between  the  eyes  as  I  asked : 

"Were  you  asleep?  Is  that  why  you  saw 
her  so  suddenly?" 

It  is  now  five  years  since  I  asked  the  ques 
tion.  I  am  still  waiting  for  Strokher's  answer. 

Well,  our  shaft  was  broken.  That  was  flat. 
We  went  down  into  the  engine-room  and  saw 
the  jagged  fracture  that  was  the  symbol  of  our 


The  Ship  that  Saw  a  Ghost  201 

broken  hopes.  And  in  the  course  of  the  next 
five  minutes'  conversation  with  the  chief  we 
found  that,  as  we  had  not  provided  against 
such  a  contingency,  there  was  to  be  no  mending 
of  it.  We  said  nothing  about  the  mishap 
coinciding  with  the  appearance  of  the  Other 
Ship.  But  I  know  we  did  not  consider  the 
break  with  any  degree  of  surprise  after  a  few 
moments. 

We  came  up  from  the  engine-room  and  sat 
down  to  the  cabin  table. 

"Now  what?"  said  Hardenberg,  by  way  of 
beginning. 

Nobody  answered  at  first. 

It  was  by  now  three  in  the  morning.  I  recall 
it  all  perfectly.  The  ports  opposite  where  I 
sat  were  open  and  I  could  see.  The  moon  was 
all  but  full  set.  The  dawn  was  coming  up  with 
a  copper  murkiness  over  the  edge  of  the  world. 
All  the  stars  were  yet  out.  The  sea,  for  all 
the  red  moon  and  copper  dawn,  was  gray,  and 
there,  less  than  half  a  mile  away,  still  lay  our 
consort.  I  could  see  her  through  the  portholes 
with  each  slow  careening  of  the  Glarus. 

"I  vote  for  the  island,"  cried  Ally  Bazan, 
"shaft  or  no  shaft.  We  rigs  a  bit  o'  syle, 
y'know —  "  and  thereat  the  discussion  began. 

For  upward  of  two  hours  it  raged,  with  loud 
words  and  shaken  forefingers,  and  great  noisy 


202  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

hangings  of  the  table,  and  how  it  would  have 
ended  I  do  not  know,  but  at  last — it  was  then 
maybe  five  in  the  morning — the  lookout  passed 
word  down  to  the  cabin: 

''Will  you  come  on  deck,  gentlemen?'*  It 
was  the  mate  who  spoke,  and  the  man  was 
shaken — I  could  see  that — to  the  very  vitals 
of  him.  We  started  and  stared  at  one  another, 
and  I  watched  little  Ally  Bazan  go  slowly 
white  to  the  lips.  And  even  then  no  word 
of  the  ship,  except  as  it  might  be  this  from 
Hardenberg : 

"What  is  it?  Good  God  Almighty,  I'm  no 
coward,  but  this  thing  is  getting  one  too  many 
forme." 

Then  without  further  speech  he  went  on 
deck. 

The  air  was  cool.  The  sun  was  not  yet  up. 
It  was  that  strange,  queer  mid-period  between 
dark  and  dawn,  when  the  night  is  over  and  the 
day  not  yet  come,  just  the  gray  that  is  neither 
light  nor  dark,  the  dim  dead  blink  as  of  the 
refracted  light  from  extinct  worlds. 

We  stood  at  the  rail.  We  did  not  speak; 
we  stood  watching.  It  was  so  still  that  the 
drip  of  steam  from  some  loosened  pipe  far 
below  was  plainly  audible,  and  it  sounded  in 
that  lifeless,  silent  grayness  like — God  knows 
what — a  death  tick. 


The  Ship  that  Saw  a  Ghost  203 

"You  see,"  said  the  mate,  speaking  just 
above  a  whisper,  "there's  no  mistake  about  it. 
She  is  moving — this  way." 

"Oh,  a  current,  of  course,"  Strokher  tried 
to  say  cheerfully,  "sets  her  toward  us. " 

Would  the  morning  never  come? 

Ally  Bazan — his  parents  were  Catholic — 
began  to  mutter  to  himself. 

Then  Hardenberg  spoke  aloud. 

"I  particularly  don't  want — that — out- 
there — to  cross  our  bows.  I  don't  want  it  to 
come  to  that.  We  must  get  some  sails  on  her. " 

"And  I  put  it  to  you  as  man  to  man,"  said 
Strokher,  "where  might  be  your  wind." 

He  was  right.  The  Glarus  floated  in  absolute 
calm.  On  all  that  slab  of  ocean  nothing  moved 
but  the  Dead  Ship. 

She  came  on  slowly;  her  bows,  the  high, 
clumsy  bows  pointed  toward  us,  the  water 
turning  from  her  forefoot.  She  came  on;  she 
was  near  at  hand.  We  saw  her  plainly — saw 
the  rotted  planks,  the  crumbling  rigging,  the 
rust-corroded  metal-work,  the  broken  rail,  the 
gaping  deck,  and  I  could  imagine  that  the  clean 
water  broke  away  from  her  sides  in  refluent 
wavelets  as  though  in  recoil  from  a  thing 
unclean.  She  made  no  sound.  No  single  thing 
stirred  aboard  the  hulk  of  her — but  she  moved. 

We  were  helpless.     The  Giants  could  stir  no 


204  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

boat  in  any  direction;  we  were  chained  to  the 
spot.  Nobody  had  thought  to  put  out  our 
lights,  and  they  still  burned  on  through  the 
dawn,  strangely  out  of  place  in  their  red-and- 
green  garishness,  like  maskers  surprised  by 
daylight. 

And  in  the  silence  of  that  empty  ocean,  in 
that  queer  half-light  between  dawn  and  day, 
at  six  o'clock,  silent  as  the  settling  of  the  dead 
to  the  bottomless  bottom  of  the  ocean,  gray 
as  fog,  lonely,  blind,  soulless,  voiceless,  the 
Dead  Ship  crossed  our  bows. 

I  do  not  know  how  long  after  this  the  Ship 
disappeared,  or  what  was  the  time  of  day  when 
we  at  last  pulled  ourselves  together.  But  we 
came  to  some  sort  of  decision  at  last.  This 
was  to  go  on — under  sail.  We  were  too  close  to 
the  island  now  to  turn  back  for — for  a  broken 
shaft. 

The  afternoon  was  spent  fitting  on  the  sails 
to  her,  and  when  after  nightfall  the  wind  at 
length  came  up  fresh  and  favourable,  I  believe 
we  all  felt  heartened  and  a  deal  more  hardy— 
until  the  last  canvas  went  aloft,  and  Harden- 
berg  took  the  wheel. 

We  had  drifted  a  good  deal  since  the  morn 
ing,  and  the  bows  of  the  Glarus  were  pointed 
homeward,  but  as  soon  as  the  breeze  blew  strong 
enough  to  get  steerageway  Hardenberg  put 


The  Ship  that  Saw  a  Ghost  205 

the  wheel  over  and,  as  the  booms  swung  across 
the  deck,  headed  for  the  island  again. 

We  had  not  gone  on  this  course  half  an  hour- 
no,  not  twenty  minutes — before  the  wind 
shifted  a  whole  quarter  of  the  compass  and 
took  the  Glarus  square  in  the  teeth,  so  that 
there  was  nothing  for  it  but  to  tack.  And 
then  the  strangest  thing  befell. 

I  will  make  allowance  for  the  fact  that  there 
was  no  centre-board  nor  keel  to  speak  of  to  the 
Glarus.  I  will  admit  that  the  sails  upon  a  nine- 
hundred-ton  freighter  are  not  calculated  to 
speed  her,  nor  steady  her.  I  will  even  admit 
the  possibility  of  a  current  that  set  from  the 
island  toward  us.  All  this  may  be  true,  yet  the 
Glarus  should  have  advanced.  We  should 
have  made  a  wake. 

And  instead  W  this,  our  stolid,  steady,  trusty 
old  boat  was — what  shall  I  say  ? 

I  will  say  that  no  man  may  thoroughly  under 
stand  a  ship — after  all.  I  will  say  that  new 
ships  are  cranky  and  unsteady;  that  old  and 
seasoned  ships  have  their  little  crochets,  their 
little  fussinesses  that  their  skippers  must  learn 
and  humour  if  they  are  to  get  anything  out  of 
them;  that  even  the  best  ships  may  sulk  at 
times,  shirk  their  work,  grow  unstable,  per 
verse,  and  refuse  to  answer  helm  and  handling. 
And  I  will  say  that  some  ships  that  for  years 


206  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

have  sailed  blue  water  as  soberly  and  as  docilely 
as  a  street-car  horse  has  plodded  the  treadmill 
of  the  'tween-tracks,  have  been  known  to  balk, 
as  stubbornly  and  as  conclusively  as  any  old 
Bay  Billy  that  ever  wore  a  bell.  I  know  this 
has  happened,  because  I  have  seen  it.  I  saw, 
for  instance,  the  Glarus  do  it. 

Quite  literally  and  truly  we  could  do  nothing 
with  her.  We  will  say,  if  you  like,  that  that 
great  jar  and  wrench  when  the  shaft  gave  way 
shook  her  and  crippled  her.  It  is  true,  how 
ever,  that  whatever  the  cause  may  have  been, 
we  could  not  force  her  toward  the  island.  Of 
course,  we  all  said  " current";  but  why  didn't 
the  log-line  trail  ? 

For  three  days  and  three  nights  we  tried  it. 
And  the  Glarus  heaved  and  plunged  and  shook 
herself  just  as  you  have  seen  a  horse  plunge 
and  rear  when  his  rider  tries  to  force  him  at  the 
steam-roller. 

I  tell  you  I  could  feel  the  fabric  of  her  tremble 
and  shudder  from  bow  to  stern-post,  as  though 
she  were  in  a  storm ;  I  tell  you  she  fell  off  from 
the  wind,  and  broad-on  drifted  back  from  her 
course  till  the  sensation  of  her  shrinking  was 
as  plain  as  her  own  staring  lights  and  a  thing 
pitiful  to  see. 

We  roweled  her,  and  we  crowded  sail  upon 
her,  and  we  coaxed  and  bullied  and  humoured 


The  Ship  that  Saw  a  Ghost          207 

her,  till  the  Three  Crows,  their  fortune  only  a 
plain  sail  two  days  ahead,  raved  and  swore 
like  insensate  brutes,  or  shall  we  say  like 
mahouts  trying  to  drive  their  stricken  elephant 
upon  the  tiger — and  all  to  no  purpose.  "  Damn 
the  damned  current  and  the  damned  luck  and 
the  damned  shaft  and  all,"  Hardenberg  would 
exclaim,  as  from  the  wheel  he  would  catch  the 
Glarus  falling  off.  "Go  on,  you  old  hooker — 
you  tub  of  junk !  My  God,  you'd  think  she 
was  scared !" 

Perhaps  the  Glarus  was  scared,  perhaps  not ; 
that  point  is  debatable.  But  it  was  beyond 
doubt  of  debate  that  Hardenberg  was  scared. 

A  ship  that  will  not  obey  is  only  one  degree 
less  terrible  than  a  mutinous  crew.  And  we 
were  in  a  fair  way  to  have  both.  The  stokers, 
whom  we  had  impressed  into  duty  as  A.  B.'s, 
were  of  course  superstitious;  and  they  knew 
how  the  Glarus  was  acting,  and  it  was  only  a 
question  of  time  before  they  got  out  of  hand. 

That  was  the  end.  We  held  a  final  confer 
ence  in  the  cabin  and  decided  that  there  was 
no  help  for  it — we  must  turn  back. 

And  back  wre  accordingly  turned,  and  at 
once  the  wind  followed  us,  and  the  "current" 
helped  us,  and  the  water  churned  under  the 
forefoot  of  the  Glarus,  and  the  wake  whitened 
under  her  stern,  and  the  log-line  ran  out  from 


208  A  Deal  in  Wheat  > 

the  trail  and  strained  back  as  the  ship  worked 
homeward. 

We  had  never  a  mishap  from  the  time  we 
finally  swung  her  about;  and,  considering  the 
circumstances,  the  voyage  back  to  San  Fran 
cisco  was  propitious. 

But  an  incident  happened  just  after  we  had 
started  back.  We  were  perhaps  some  five 
miles  on  the  homeward  track.  It  was  early 
evening  and  Strokher  had  the  watch.  At 
about  seven  o'clock  he  called  me  up  on  the 
bridge. 

"See  her?"  he  said. 

And  there,  far  behind  us,  in  the  shadow  of 
the  twilight,  loomed  the  Other  Ship  again, 
desolate,  lonely  beyond  words.  We  were  leav 
ing  her  rapidly  astern.  Strokher  and  I  stood 
looking  at  her  till  she  dwindled  to  a  dot.  Then 
Strokher  said : 

"She's  on  post  again." 

And  when  months  afterward  we  limped  into 
the  Golden  Gate  and  cast  anchor  off  the  "  Front" 
our  crew  went  ashore  as  soon  as  discharged, 
and  in  half  a  dozen  hours  the  legend  was  in 
every  sailors'  boarding-house  and  in  every 
seaman's  dive,  from  Barbary  Coast  to  Black 
Tom's. 

It  is  still  there,  and  that  is  why  no  pilot  will 
take  the  Glarus  out,  no  captain  will  navigate 


The  ShipihqtAS&'iv  a  Ghost  209 

her,  no  stoker  feed  her  fires,  no  sailor  walk  her 
decks.  The  Glarus  is  suspect.  She  will  never 
smell  blue  water  again,  nor  taste  the  trades. 
She  has  seen  a  Ghost. 


THE  GHOST  IN  THE  CROSSTREES 


THE   GHOST   IN   THE   CROSSTREES 
I 


RYDER,  the  President  of  the 
South  Pacific  Exploitation  Company, 
had  at  last  got  hold  of  a  "proposition"  —  all 
Ryder's  schemes  were,  in  his  vernacular, 
"propositions"  —  that  was  not  only  profitable 
beyond  precedent  or  belief,  but  that  also  was, 
wonderful  to  say,  more  or  less  legitimate. 
He  had  got  an  "island.  '  '  He  had  not  discovered 
it.  Ryder  had  not  felt  a  deck  under  his  shoes 
for  twenty  years  other  than  the  promenade  deck 
of  the  ferry-boat  San  Rafael,  that  takes  him 
home  to  Berkeley  every  evening  after  "business 
hours."  He  had  not  discovered  it,  but  "Old 
Rosemary,"  captain  of  the  barkentine  Scottish 
Chief,  of  Blyth,  had  done  that  very  thing,  and, 
dying  before  he  was  able  to  perfect  the  title, 
had  made  over  his  interest  in  it  to  his  best 
friend  and  old  comrade,  Cyrus  Ryder. 

"Old  Rosemary,"  I  am  told,  first  landed  on 

the  island  —  it  is  called  Paa  —  in  the  later  '6o's. 

He  established  its  location  and  took  its  latitude 

and   longitude,    but   as   minutes   and   degrees 

213 


214  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

mean  nothing  to  the  lay  reader,  let  it  be  said  that 
the  Island  of  Paa  lies  just  below  the  equator, 
some  200  miles  west  of  the  Gilberts  and  1,600 
miles  due  east  from  Brisbane,  in  Australia. 
It  is  six  miles  long,  three  wide,  and  because  of 
the  prevailing  winds  and  precipitous  character 
of  the  coast  can  only  be  approached  from  the 
west  during  December  and  January. 

"Old  Rosemary"  landed  on  the  island, 
raised  the  American  flag,  had  the  crew  witness 
the  document  by  virtue  of  which  he  made 
himself  the  possessor,  and  then,  returning  to 
San  Francisco,  forwarded  to  the  Secretary  of 
State,  at  Washington,  application  for  title. 
This  was  withheld  till  it  could  be  shown  that  no 
other  nation  had  a  prior  claim.  While  "Old 
Rosemary"  was  working  out  the  proof,  he  died, 
and  the  whole  matter  was  left  in  abeyance  till 
Cyrus  Ryder  took  it  up.  By  then  there  was 
a  new  Secretary  in  Washington  and  times  were 
changed,  so  that  the  Government  of  Ryder's 
native  land  was  not  so  averse  toward  acquiring 
Eastern  possessions.  The  Secretary  of  State 
wrote  to  Ryder  to  say  that  the  application 
would  be  granted  upon  furnishing  a  bond  for 
$50,000;  and  you  may  believe  that  the  bond 
was  forthcoming. 

For  in  the  first  report  upon  Paa,  "Old  Rose 
mary"  had  used  the  magic  word  "guano." 


The  Ghost  in   the  Crosstrees  215 

He  averred,  and  his  crew  attested  over  their 
sworn  statements,  that  Paa  was  covered  to 
an  average  depth  of  six  feet  with  the  stuff,  so 
that  this  last  and  biggest  of  "Cy"  Ryder's 
propositions  was  a  vast  slab  of  an  extremely 
marketable  product  six  feet  thick,  three  miles 
wide  and  six  miles  long. 

But  no  sooner  had  the  title  been  granted 
when  there  came  a  dislocation  in  the  proceedings 
that  until  then  had  been  going  forward  sc^ 
smoothly.  Ryder  called  the  Three  Black 
Crows  to  him  at  this  juncture,  one  certain 
afternoon  in  the  month  of  April.  They  were 
his  best  agents.  The  plums  that  the  "Com 
pany"  had  at  its  disposal  generally  went  to  the 
trio,  and  if  any  man  could  "put  through"  a  dan 
gerous  and  desperate  piece  of  work,  Strokher, 
Hardenberg  and  Ally  Bazan  were  those  men. 

Of  late  they  had  been  unlucky,  and  the  affair 
of  the  contraband  arms,  which  had  ended  in 
failure  of  cataclysmic  proportions,  yet  rankled 
in  Ryder's  memory,  but  he  had  no  one  else  to 
whom  he  could  intrust  the  present  proposition 
and  he  still  believed  Hardenberg  to  be  the  best 
boss  on  his  list. 

If  Paa  was  to  be  fought  for,  Hardenberg, 
backed  by  Strokher  and  Ally  Bazan,  was  the 
man  of  all  men  for  the  job,  for  it  looked  as 
though  Ryder  would  not  get  the  Island  of  Paa 


216  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

without  a  fight  after  all,  and  nitrate  beds  were 
worth  fighting  for. 

"You  see,  boys,  it's  this  way,"  Ryder  ex 
plained  to  the  three  as  they  sat  around  the 
spavined  table  in  the  grimy  back  room  of 
Ryder's  "office."  "It's  this  way.  There's  a 
scoovy  after  Paa,  I'm  told ;  he  says  he  was  there 
before  'Rosemary,'  which  is  a  lie,  and  that  his 
Gov'ment  has  given  him  title.  He's  got  a  kind 
of  dough-dish  up  Portland  way  and  starts  for 
Paa  as  soon  as  ever  he  kin  fit  out.  He's  got  no 
title,  in  course,  but  if  he  gits  there  afore  we 
do  and  takes  possession  it'll  take  fifty  years  o' 
lawing  an'  injunctioning  to  git  him  off.  So 
hustle  is  the  word  for  you  from  the  word  'go.' 
We  got  a  good  start  o'  the  scoovy.  He  can't 
put  to  sea  within  a  week,  while  over  yonder  in 
Oakland  Basin  there's  the  Idaho  Lass,  as  good 
a  schooner,  boys,  as  ever  wore  paint,  all  ready 
but  to  fit  her  new  sails  on  her.  Ye  kin  do  it  in 
less  than  no  time.  The  stores  will  be  goin'  into 
her  while  ye're  workin',  and  within  the  week 
I  expect  to  see  the  Idaho  Lass  showing  her  heels 
to  the  Presidio.  You  see  the  point  now,  boys. 
If  ye  beat  the  scoovy — his  name  is  Petersen, 
and  his  boat  is  called  the  Elftruda — we're  to 
the  wind'ard  of  a  pretty  pot  o'  money.  If  he 
gets  away  before  you  do — well,  there's  no 
telling;  we  prob'ly  lose  the  island." 


II 


ABOUT  ten  days  before  the  morning  set  for 
their  departure  I  went  over  to  the  Oakland 
Basin  to  see  how  the  Three  Black  Crows  were 
getting  on. 

Hardenberg  welcomed  me  as  my  boat  bumped 
alongside,  and  extending  a  great  tarry  paw, 
hauled  me  over  the  rail.  The  schooner  was  a 
wilderness  of  confusion,  with  the  sails  covering, 
apparently,  nine-tenths  of  the  decks,  the 
remaining  tenth  encumbered  by  spars,  cordage, 
tangled  rigging,  chains,  cables  and  the  like,  all 
helter-skeltered  together  in  such  a  haze  of 
entanglements  that  my  heart  misgave  me  as 
I  looked  on  it.  Surely  order  would  not  issue 
from  this  chaos  in  four  days'  time  with  only 
three  men  to  speed  the  work. 

But  Hardenberg  was  reassuring,  and  little 
Ally  Bazan,  the  colonial,  told  me  they  would 
"snatch  her  shipshape  in  the  shorter  end  o' 
two  days,  if  so  be  they  must." 

I  stayed  with  the  Three  Crows  all  that  day 
and  shared  their  dinner  with  them  on  the 
quarterdeck  when,  wearied  to  death  with  the 
217 


A  Deal  in  Wheat 


strain  of  wrestling  with  the  slatting  canvas  and 
ponderous  boom,  they  at  last  threw  themselves 
upon  the  hamper  of  "cold  snack"  I  had  brought 
off  with  me  and  pledged  the  success  of  the 
venture  in  tin  dippers  full  of  Pilsener. 

"And  I'm  thinking,"  said  Ally  Bazan,  "as 
'ow  ye  might  as  well  turn  in  along  o'  us  on 
board  'ere,  instead  o'  hykin'  back  to  town 
to-night.  There's  a  fairish  set  o'  currents  up 
and  daown  'ere  about  this  time  o'  dye,  and 
ye'd  find  it  a  stiff  bit  o'  rowing." 

"We'll  sling  a  hammick  for  you  on  the 
quarterdeck,  m'son,"  urged  Hardenberg. 

And  so  it  happened  that  I  passed  my  first 
night  aboard  the  Idaho  Lass. 

We  turned  in  early.  The  Three  Crows  were 
very  tired,  and  only  Ally  Bazan  and  I  were  left 
awake  at  the  time  when  we  saw  the  8  .'30  ferry 
boat  negotiating  for  her  slip  on  the  Oakland 
side.  Then  we  also  went  to  bed. 

And  now  it  becomes  necessary,  for  a  better 
understanding  of  what  is  to  follow,  to  mention 
with  some  degree  of  particularization  the 
places  and  manners  in  which  my  three  friends 
elected  to  take  their  sleep,  as  well  as  the  con 
dition  and  berth  of  the  schooner  Idaho  Lass. 

Hardenberg  slept  upon  the  quarterdeck, 
rolled  up  in  an  army  blanket  and  a  tarpaulin. 
Strokher  turned  in  below  in  the  cabin  upon 


The  Ghost  in   the   Crosstrees  219 

the  fixed  lounge  by  the  diningrtable,  while 
Ally  Bazan  stretched  himself  in  one  of  the 
bunks  in  the  fo'c's'le. 

As  for  the  location  of  the  schooner,  she  lay 
out  in  the  stream,  some  three  or  four  cables' 
length  off  the  yards  and  docks  of  a  ship-building 
concern.  No  other  ship  or  boat  of  any  descrip 
tion  was  anchored  nearer  than  at  least  300 
yards.  She  was  a  fine,  roomy  vessel,  three- 
masted,  about  150  feet  in  length  overall.  She 
lay  head  up  stream,  and  from  where  I  lay  by 
Hardenberg  on  the  quarterdeck  I  could  see  her 
tops  sharply  outlined  against  the  sky  above 
the  Golden  Gate  before  I  went  to  sleep. 

I  suppose  it  was  very  early  in  the  morning — 
nearer  two  than  three — when  I  awoke.  Some 
movement  on  the  part  of  Hardenberg — as  I 
afterward  found  out — had  aroused  me.  But 
I  lay  inert  for  a  long  minute  trying  to  find  out 
why  I  was  not  in  my  own  bed,  in  my  own 
home,  and  to  account  for  the  rushing,  rippling 
sound  of  the  tide  eddies  sucking  and  chuckling 
around  the  Lass's  rudder-post. 

Then  I  became  aware  that  Hardenberg  was 
awake.  I  lay  in  my  hammock,  facing  the  stern 
of  the  schooner,  and  as  Hardenberg  had  made 
up  his  bed  between  me  and  the  wheel  he  was 
directly  in  my  line  of  vision  when  I  opened 
my  eyes,  and  I  could  see  him  without  any  other 


220  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

movement  than  that  of  raising  the  eyelids. 
Just  now,  as  I  drifted  more  and  more  into 
wakefulness,  I  grew  proportionately  puzzled 
and  perplexed  to  account  for  a  singularly 
strange  demeanour  and  conduct  on  the  part  of 
my  friend. 

He  was  sitting  up  in  his  place,  his  knees 
drawn  up  under  the  blanket,  one  arm  thrown 
around  both,  the  hand  of  the  other  arm  resting 
on  the  neck  and  supporting  the  weight  of  his 
body.  He  was  broad  awake.  I  could  see  the 
green  shine  of  our  riding  lantern  in  his  wide- 
open  eyes,  and  from  time  to  time  I  could  hear 
him  muttering  to  himself,  "What  is  it?  What 
is  it?  What  the  devil  is  it,  anyhow?"  But 
it  was  not  his  attitude,  nor  the  fact  of  his  being 
so  broad  awake  at  the  unseasonable  hour,  nor 
yet  his  unaccountable  words,  that  puzzled  me 
the  most.  It  was  the  man's  eyes  and  the 
direction  in  which  they  looked  that  startled  me. 

His  gaze  was  directed  not  upon  anything 
on  the  deck  of  the  boat,  nor  upon  the  surface 
of  the  water  near  it,  but  upon  something 
behind  me  and  at  a  great  height  in  the  air. 
I  was  not  long  in  getting  myself  broad  awake. 


Ill 

I  ROLLED  out  on  the  deck  and  crossed  over  to 
where  Hardenberg  sat  huddled  in  his  blankets. 

"What  the  devil "  I  began. 

He  jumped  suddenly  at  the  sound  of  my 
voice,  then  raised  an  arm  and  pointed  toward 
the  top  of  the  foremast. 

"D'ye  see  it?"  he  muttered.  "Say,  huh? 
D'ye  see  it?  I  thought  I  saw  it  last  night, 
but  I  wasn't  sure.  But  there's  no  mistake 
now.  D'ye  see  it,  Mr.  Dixon?" 

I  looked  where  he  pointed.  The  schooner 
was  riding  easily  to  anchor,  the  surface  of  the 
bay  was  calm,  but  overhead  the  high  white 
sea-fog  was  rolling  in.  Against  it  the  foremast 
stood  out  like  the  hand  of  an  illuminated  town 
clock,  and  not  a  detail  of  its  rigging  that  was 
not  as  distinct  as  if  etched  against  the  sky. 

And  yet  I  saw  nothing. 

"Where?"  I  demanded,  and  again  and  again 
"where?" 

"In  the  crosstrees,"  whispered  Hardenberg. 
"Ah,  look  there." 

He  was  right.  Something  was  stirring  there, 
something  that  I  had  mistaken  for  the  furled 
221 


222  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

tops'l.  At  first  it  was  but  a  formless  bundle, 
but  as  Hardenberg  spoke  it  stretched  itself,  it 
grew  upright,  it  assumed  an  erect  attitude,  it 
took  the  outlines  of  a  human  being.  From 
head  to  heel  a  casing  housed  it  in,  a  casing  that 
might  have  been  anything  at  that  hour  of  the 
night  and  in  that  strange  place — a  shroud, 
if  you  like,  a  winding-sheet — anything;  and  it 
is  without  shame  that  I  confess  to  a  creep  of  the 
most  disagreeable  sensation  I  have  ever  known 
as  I  stood  at  Hardenberg' s  side  on  that  still, 
foggy  night  and  watched  the  stirring  of  that 
nameless,  formless  shape  standing  gaunt  and 
tall  and  grisly  and  wrapped  in  its  winding- 
sheet  upon  the  crosstrees  of  the  foremast  of 
the  Idaho  Lass. 

We  watched  and  waited  breathless  for  an 
instant.  Then  the  creature  on  the  foremast 
laid  a  hand  upon  the  lashings  of  the  tops'l 
and  undid  them.  Then  it  turned,  slid  to  the 
deck  by  I  know  not  what  strange  process,  and, 
still  hooded,  still  shrouded,  still  lapped  about 
by  its  mummy-wrappings,  seized  a  rope's  end. 
In  an  instant  the  jib  was  set  and  stood  on  hard 
and  billowing  against  the  night  wind.  The 
tops'l  followed.  Then  the  figure  moved  forward 
and  passed  behind  the  companionway  of  the 
fo'c's'le. 

We    looked    for    it    to    appear    upon    the 


The  Ghost  in   the   Crosstrees          223 

other  side,  but  looked  in  vain.  We  saw  it  no 
more  that  night. 

What  Hardenberg  and  I  told  each  other 
between  the  time  of  the  disappearing  and  the 
hour  of  breakfast  I  am  now  ashamed  to  recall. 
But  at  last  we  agreed  to  say  nothing  to  the 
others — for  the  time  being.  Just  after  break 
fast,  however,  we  two  had  a  few  words  by  the 
wheel  on  the  quarterdeck.  Ally  Bazan  and 
Strokher  were  forward. 

'The  proper  thing  to  do,"  said  I — it  was  a 
glorious,  exhilarating  morning,  and  the  sun 
light  was  flooding  every  angle  and  corner  of 
the  schooner — "the  proper  thing  to  do  is 
to  sleep  on  deck  by  the  foremast  to-night  with 
our  pistols  handy  and  interview  the — party  if 
it  walks  again." 

"Oh,  yes,"  cried  Hardenberg  heartily.  "Oh, 
yes;  that's  the  proper  thing.  Of  course  it  is. 
No  manner  o'  doubt  about  that,  Mr.  Dixon. 
Watch  for  the  party — yes,  with  pistols.  Of 
course  it's  the  proper  thing.  But  I  know  one 
man  that  ain't  going  to  do  no  such  thing." 

"Well,"  I  remember  to  have  said  reflectively, 
"well — I  guess  I  know  another." 

But  for  all  our  resolutions  to  say  nothing 
to  the  others  about  the  night's  occurrences, 
we  forgot  that  the  tops'l  and  jib  were  both 
set  and  both  drawing. 


224  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

"An'  w'at  might  be  the  bloomin'  notion  o' 
setting  the  bloomin'  kite  and  jib?"  demanded 
Ally  Bazan  not  half  an  hour  after  breakfast. 
Shamelessly  Hardenberg,  at  a  loss  for  an 
answer,  feigned  an  interest  in  the  grummets 
of  the  life-boat  cover  and  left  me  to  lie 
as  best  I  might. 

But  it  is  not  easy  to  explain  why  one  should 
raise  the  sails  of  an  anchored  ship  during  the 
night,  and  Ally  Bazan  grew  very  suspicious. 
Strokher,  too,  had  something  to  say,  and  in  the 
end  the  whole  matter  came  out. 

Trust  a  sailor  to  give  full  value  to  anything 
savouring  of  the  supernatural.  Strokher 
promptly  voted  the  ship  a  "queer  old  hooker 
anyhow,  and  about  as  seaworthy  as  a 
hen-coop. "  He  held  forth  at  great  length  upon 
the  subject. 

"You  mark  my  words,  now,"  he  said. 
"There's  been  some  fishy  doin's  in  this  'ere 
vessel,  and  it's  like  somebody  done  to  death 
crool  hard,  an'  'e  wants  to  git  away  from  the 
smell  o'  land,  just  like  them  as  is  killed  on  blue 
water.  That's  w'y  'e  takes  an'  sets  the  sails 
between  dark  an'  dawn." 

But  Ally  Bazan  was  thoroughly  and  wholly 
upset,  so  much  so  that  at  first  he  could  not 
speak.  He  went  pale  and  paler  while  we 
stood  talking  it  over,  and  crossed  himself — he 


The  Ghost  in   the  Crosstrees  225 

was  a  Catholic — furtively  behind  the  water- 
butt. 

11 1  ain't  never  'a'  been  keen  on  ha'nts  anyhow, 
Mr.  Dixon,"  he  told  me  aggrievedly  at  dinner 
that  evening.  "I  got  no  use  for  'em.  I  ain't 
never  known  any  good  to  come  o'  anything 
with  a  ha'nt  tagged  to  it,  an'  we're  makin'  a 
ill  beginnin'  o'  this  island  business,  Mr.  Dixon 
—a  blyme  ill  beginnin'.  I  mean  to  stye  awyke 
to-night." 

But  if  he  was  awake  the  little  colonial  was 
keeping  close  to  his  bunk  at  the  time  when 
Strokher  and  Hardenberg  woke  me  at  about 
three  in  the  morning. 

I  rolled  out  and  joined  them  on  the  quarter 
deck  and  stood  beside  them  watching.  The 
same  figure  again  towered,  as  before,  gray  and 
ominous  in  the  crosstrees.  As  before,  it  set 
the  tops'l ;  as  before,  it  came  down  to  the  deck 
and  raised  the  jib;  as  before,  it  passed  out  of 
sight  amid  the  confusion  of  the  forward  deck. 

But  this  time  we  all  ran  toward  where  we 
last  had  seen  it,  stumbling  over  the  encumbered 
decks,  jostling  and  tripping,  but  keeping 
wonderfully  close  together.  It  was  not  twenty 
seconds  from  the  time  the  creature  had  dis 
appeared  before  we  stood  panting  upon  the 
exact  spot  we  had  last  seen  it.  We  searched 
every  corner  of  the  forward  deck  in  vain.  We 


226  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

looked  over  the  side.  The  moon  was  up. 
This  night  there  was  no  fog.  We  could  see 
for  miles  each  side  of  us,  but  never  a  trace  of  a 
boat  was  visible,  and  it  was  impossible  that  any 
swimmer  could  have  escaped  the  merciless 
scrutiny  to  which  we  subjected  the  waters  of 
the  bay  in  every  direction. 

Hardenberg  and  I  dived  down  into  the 
fo'c's'le.  Ally  Bazan  was  sound  asleep  in  his 
bunk  and  woke  stammering,  blinking  and 
bewildered  by  the  lantern  we  carried. 

"I  sye,"  he  cried,  all  at  once  scrambling  up 
and  clawing  at  our  arms,  "D'd  the  bally  ha'nt 
show  up  agyne?"  And  as  we  nodded  he  went 
on  more  aggrievedly  than  ever — "Oh,  I  sye,  y' 
know,  I  daon't  like  this.  I  eyen't  shipping  in 
no  bloomin'  'ooker  wot  carries  a  ha'nt  for 
supercargo.  They  waon't  no  good  come  o' 
this  cruise — no,  they  waon't.  It's  a  sign,  that's 
wot  it  is.  I  eyen't  goin'  to  buck  again  no  signs 
— it  eyen't  human  nature,  no  it  eyen't.  You 
mark  my  words,  'Bud'  Hardenberg,  we  clear 
this  port  with  a  ship  wot  has  a  ha'nt  an'  we 
waon't  never  come  back  agyne,  my  hearty." 

That  night  he  berthed  aft  with  us  on  the 
quarterdeck,  but  though  we  stood  watch  and 
watch  till  well  into  the  dawn,  nothing  stirred 
about  the  foremast.  So  it  was  the  next  night, 
and  so  the  night  after  that.  When  three 


The  Ghost  in  the  Crosstrees          227 

successive  days  had  passed  without  any  manifes 
tation  the  keen  edge  of  the  business  became 
a  little  blunted  and  we  declared  that  an  end 
had  been  made. 

Ally  Bazan  returned  to  his  bunk  in  the 
fo'c's'le  on  the  fourth  night,  and  the  rest  of 
us  slept  the  hours  through  unconcernedly. 

But  in  the  morning  there  were  the  jib  and 
tops'l  set  and  drawing  as  before. 


IV 

AFTER  this  we  began  experimenting — on  Ally 
Bazan.  We  bunked  him  forward  and  we 
bunked  him  aft,  for  some  one  had  pointed  out 
that  the  "ha'nt  walked  only  at  the  times  when 
the  colonial  slept  in  the  fo'c's'le.  We  found  this 
to  be  true.  Let  the  little  fellow  watch  on  the 
quarterdeck  with  us  and  the  night  passed  with 
out  disturbance.  As  soon  as  he  took  up  his 
quarters  forward  the  haunting  recommenced. 
Furthermore,  it  began  to  appear  that  the 
"ha'nt"  carefully  refrained  from  appearing  to 
him.  He  of  us  all  had  never  seen  the  thing. 
He  of  us  all  was  spared  the  chills  and  the 
harrowings  that  laid  hold  upon  the  rest  of  us 
during  these  still  gray  hours  after  midnight 
when  we  huddled  on  the  deck  of  the  Idaho  Lass 
and  watched  the  sheeted  apparition  in  the 
rigging ;  for  by  now  there  was  no  more  charging 
forward  in  attempts  to  run  the  ghost  down. 
We  had  passed  that  stage  long  since. 

But  so  far  from  rejoicing  in  this  immunity  or 

drawing  courage  therefrom,  Ally  Bazan  filled 

the  air  with  his  fears  and  expostulations.     Just 

the  fact  that  he  was  in  some  way  differentiated 

229 


230  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

from  the  others — that  he  was  singled  out,  if 
only  for  exemption — worked  upon  him.  And 
that  he  was  unable  to  scale  his  terrors  by  actual 
sight  of  their  object  excited  them  all  the  more. 
And  there  issued  from  this  a  curious  conse 
quence.  He,  the  very  one  who  had  never  seen 
the  haunting,  was  also  the  very  one  to  unsettle 
what  little  common  sense  yet  remained  to 
Hardenberg  and  Strokher.  He  never  allowed 
the  subject  to  be  ignored — never  lost  an  oppor 
tunity  of  referring  to  the  doom  that  o'erhung 
the  vessel.  By  the  hour  he  poured  into  the 
ears  of  his  friends  lugubrious  tales  of  ships, 
warned  as  this  one  was,  that  had  cleared  from 
port,  never  to  be  seen  again.  He  recalled  to 
their  minds  parallel  incidents  that  they  them 
selves  had  heard;  he  foretold  the  fate  of  the 
Idaho  Lass  when  the  land  should  lie  behind  and 
she  should  be  alone  in  midocean  with  this 
horrid  supercargo  that  took  liberties  with  the 
rigging,  and  at  last  one  particular  morning,  two 
days  before  that  which  was  to  witness  the 
schooner's  departure,  he  came  out  flatfooted 
to  the  effect  that  "Gaw-blyme  him,  he  couldn't 
stand  the  gaff  no  longer,  no  he  couldn't,  so  help 
him,  that  if  the  owners  were  wishful  for  to  put 
to  sea"  (doomed  to  some  unnamable  destruc 
tion)  "he  for  one  wa'n't  fit  to  die,  an'  was 
going  to  quit  that  blessed  day." 


The   Ghost   in   the   Crosstrees  231 

For  the  sake  of  appearances,  Hardenberg 
and  Strokher  blustered  and  fumed,  but  I  could 
hear  the  crack  in  Strokher 's  voice  as  plain  as 
in  a  broken  ship's  bell.  I  was  not  surprised 
at  what  happened  later  in  the  day,  when  he 
told  the  others  that  he  was  a  very  sick  man. 
A  congenital  stomach  trouble,  it  seemed — 
or  was  it  liver  complaint — had  found  him  out 
again.  He  had  contracted  it  when  a  lad  at 
Trincomalee,  diving  for  pearls;  it  was  acutely 
painful,  it  appeared.  Why,  gentlemen,  even 
at  that  very  moment,  as  he  stood  there  talking 
—Hi,  yi !  O  Lord  ! — talking,  it  was  a-griping 
of  him  something  uncommon,  so  it  was.  And 
no,  it  was  no  manner  of  use  for  him  to  think 
of  going  on  this  voyage;  sorry  he  was,  too,  for 
he'd  made  up  his  mind,  so  he  had,  to  find  out 
just  what  was  wrong  with  the  foremast,  etc. 

And  thereupon  Hardenberg  swore  a  great 
oath  and  threw  down  the  capstan  bar  he  held 
in  his  hand. 

''Well,  then,"  he  cried  wrathfully,  "we 
might  as  well  chuck  up  the  whole  business. 
No  use  going  to  sea  with  a  sick  man  and  a 
scared  man." 

"An'  there's  the  first  word  o'  sense,"  cried 
Ally  Bazan,  "I've  heard  this  long  day.  'Scared,' 
he  says;  aye,  right  ye  are,  me  bully." 

"It's  Cy  Rider's  fault,"  the  three  declared 


232  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

after  a  two-hours'  talk.  "No  business  giving 
us  a  schooner  with  a  ghost  aboard.  Scoovy 
or  no  scoovy,  island  or  no  island,  guano  or 
no  guano,  we  don't  go  to  sea  in  the  haunted 
hooker  called  the  Idaho  Lass.11 

No  more  they  did.  On  board  the  schooner 
they  had  faced  the  supernatural  with  some 
kind  of  courage  born  of  the  occasion.  Once 
on  shore,  and  no  money  could  hire,  no  power 
force  them  to  go  aboard  a  second  time. 

The  affair  ended  in  a  grand  wrangle  in 
Cy  Rider's  back  office,  and  just  twenty-four 
hours  later  the  bark  Elftruda,  Captain  Jens 
Petersen,  cleared  from  Portland,  bound  for 
"  a  cruise  to  South  Pacific  ports — in  ballast." 

Two  years  after  this  I  took  Ally  Bazan  with 
me  on  a  duck-shooting  excursion  in  the  "Toolies" 
back  of  Sacramento,  for  he  is  a  handy  man 
about  a  camp  and  can  row  a  boat  as  softly 
as  a  drifting  cloud. 

We  went  about  in  a  cabin  cat  of  some  thirty 
feet  over  all,  the  rowboat  towing  astern.  Some 
times  we  did  not  go  ashore  to  camp,  but  slept 
aboard.  On  the  second  night  of  this  expedient 
I  woke  in  my  blankets  on  the  floor  of  the 
cabin  to  see  the  square  of  gray  light  that  stood 
for  the  cabin  door  darkened  by — it  gave  me 
the  same  old  start — a  sheeted  figure.  It  was 


The  Ghost  in   the  Crosstrees          233 

going  up  the  two  steps  to  the  deck.  Beyond 
question  it  had  been  in  the  cabin.  I  started 
up  and  followed  it.  I  was  too  frightened  not 
to — if  you  can  see  what  I  mean.  By  the  time 
I  had  got  the  blankets  off  and  had  thrust  my 
head  above  the  level  of  the  cabin  hatch  the 
figure  was  already  in  the  bows,  and,  as  a  matter 
of  course,  hoisting  the  jib. 

I  thought  of  calling  Ally  Bazan,  who  slept 
by  me  on  the  cabin  floor,  but  it  seemed  to  me 
at  the  time  that  if  I  did  not  keep  that  figure  in 
sight  it  would  elude  me  again,  and,  besides,  if 
I  went  back  in  the  cabin  I  was  afraid  that  I 
would  bolt  the  door  and  remain  under  the  bed 
clothes  till  morning.  I  was  afraid  to  go  on 
with  the  adventure,  but  I  was  much  more 
afraid  to  go  back. 

So  I  crept  forward  over  the  deck  of  the  sloop. 
The  "ha'nt"  had  its  back  toward  me,  fumbling 
with  the  ends  of  the  jib  halyards.  I  could  hear 
the  creak  of  new  ropes  as  it  undid  the  knot, 
and  the  sound  was  certainly  substantial  and 
commonplace.  I  was  so  close  by  now  that  I 
could  see  every  outline  of  the  shape.  It  was 
precisely  as  it  had  appeared  on  the  crosstrees 
of  the  Idaho,  only,  seen  without  perspective, 
and  brought  down  to  the  level  of  the  eye,  it 
lost  its  exaggerated  height. 

It  had  been  kneeling  upon  the  deck.     Now, 


234  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

at  last,  it  rose  and  turned  about,  the  end  of  the 
halyards  in  its  hand.  The  light  of  the  earliest 
dawn  fell  squarely  on  the  face  and  form,  and 
I  saw,  if  you  please,  Ally  Bazan  himself.  His 
eyes  were  half  shut,  and  through  his  open 
lips  came  the  sound  of  his  deep  and  regular 
breathing. 

At  breakfast  the  next  morning  I  asked, 
"Ally  Bazan,  did  you  ever  walk  in  your  sleep." 

"Aye,"  he  answered,  "years  ago,  when  I  was 
by  wye  o'  being  a  lad,  I  used  allus  to  wrap 
the  bloomin'  sheets  around  me.  An'  crysy 
things  I'd  do  the  times.  But  the  'abit  left  me 
when  I  grew  old  enough  to  tyke  me  whisky 
strite  and  have  hair  on  me  fyce." 

I  did  not  "explain  away"  the  ghost  in  the 
crosstrees  either  to  Ally  Bazan  or  to  the 
other  two  Black  Crows.  Furthermore,  I  do 
not  now  refer  to  the  Island  of  Paa  in  the 
hearing  of  the  trio.  The  claims  and  title  of 
Norway  to  the  island  have  long  since  been 
made  good  and  conceded — even  by  the  State 
Department  at  Washington — and  I  understand 
that  Captain  Petersen  has  made  a  very  pretty 
fortune  out  of  the  affair. 


THE   RIDING  OF   FELIPE 


THE    RIDING   OF    FELIPE 

I 

FELIPE 

A  S  young  Felipe  Arillaga  guided  his  pony 
**-**  out  of  the  last  intricacies  of  Pacheco 
Pass,  he  was  thinking  of  Rubia  Ytuerate  and 
of  the  scene  he  had  had  with  her  a  few  days 
before.  He  reconstructed  it  now  very  vividly. 
Rubia  had  been  royally  angry,  and  as  she  had 
stood  before  him,  her  arms  folded  and  her 
teeth  set,  he  was  forced  to  admit  that  she 
was  as  handsome  a  woman  as  could  be  found 
through  all  California. 

There  had  been  a  time,  three  months  past, 
when  Felipe  found  no  compulsion  in  the  admis 
sion,  for  though  betrothed  to  Buelna  Martiarena 
he  had  abruptly  conceived  a  violent  infatuation 
for  Rubia,  and  had  remained  a  guest  upon  her 
rancho  many  weeks  longer  than  he  had  intended. 
For  three  months  he  had  forgotten  Buelna 
entirely.  At  the  end  of  that  time  he  had 
remembered  her — had  awakened  to  the  fact 
that  his  infatuation  for  Rubia  was  infatuation, 
237 


238  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

and  had  resolved  to  end  the  affair  and  go  back 
to  Buelna  as  soon  as  it  was  possible. 

But  Rubia  was  quick  to  notice  the  cooling 
of  his  passion.  First  she  fixed  him  with  oblique 
suspicion  from  under  her  long  lashes,  then 
avoided  him,  then  kept  him  at  her  side  for  days 
together.  Then  at  last — his  defection  unmis 
takable — turned  on  him  with  furious  demands 
for  the  truth. 

Felipe  had  snatched  occasion  with  one  hand 
and  courage  with  the  other. 

"Well,"  he  had  said,  "well,  it  is  not  my 
fault.  Yes,  it  is  the  truth.  It  is  played  out." 

He  had  not  thought  it  necessary  to  speak 
of  Buelna;  but  Rubia  divined  the  other 
woman. 

"So  you  think  you  are  to  throw  me  aside 
like  that.  Ah,  it  is  played  out,  is  it,  Felipe 
Arillaga?  You  listen  to  me.  Do  not  fancy 
for  one  moment  you  are  going  back  to  an  old 
love,  or  on  to  a  new  one.  You  listen  to  me, " 
she  had  cried,  her  fist  over  her  head.  "I  do 
not  know  who  she  is,  but  my  curse  is  on  her, 
Felipe  Arillaga.  My  curse  is  on  her  who  next 
kisses  you.  May  that  kiss  be  a  blight  to  her. 
From  that  moment  may  evil  cling  to  her, 
bad  luck  follow  her;  may  she  love  and  not  be 
loved;  may  friends  desert  her,  enemies  beset 
her,  her  sisters  shame  her,  her  brothers  dis- 


MY   CURSE    IS  ON    HER   WHO    NEXT   KISSES   YOU 


The  Riding  of  Felipe  239 

own  her,  and  those  whom  she  has  loved  abandon 
her.  May  her  body  waste  as  your  love  for  me 
has  wasted ;  may  her  heart  be  broken  as  your 
promises  to  me  have  been  broken ;  may  her  joy 
be  as  fleeting  as  your  vows,  and  her  beauty 
grow  as  dim  as  your  memory  of  me.  I  have 
said  it." 

"So  be  it!"  Felipe  had  retorted  with  vast 
nonchalance,  and  had  flung  out  from  her 
presence  to  saddle  his  pony  and  start  back  to 
Buelna. 

But  Felipe  was  superstitious.  He  half  be 
lieved  in  curses,  had  seen  two-headed  calves 
born  because  of  them,  and  sheep  stampeded 
over  cliffs  for  no  other  reason. 

Now,  as  he  drew  out  of  Pacheco  Pass  and 
came  down  into  the  valley  the  idea  of  Rubia 
and  her  curse  troubled  him.  At  first,  when 
yet  three  days'  journey  from  Buelna,  it  had 
been  easy  to  resolve  to  brave  it  out.  But  now 
he  was  already  on  the  Rancho  Martiarena  (had 
been  traveling  over  it  for  the  last  ten  hours,  in 
fact),  and  in  a  short  time  would  be  at  the 
hacienda  of  Martiarena,  uncle  and  guardian  of 
Buelna.  He  would  see  Buelna,  and  she, 
believing  always  in  his  fidelity,  would  expect  to 
kiss  him. 

"Well,  this  is  to  be  thought  about,"  mur 
mured  Felipe  uneasily. 


240  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

He  touched  up  the  pony  with  one  of  his 
enormous  spurs. 

"Now  I  know  what  I  will  do,"  he  thought. 
"  I  will  go  to  San  Juan  Bautista  and  confess 
and  be  absolved,  and  will  buy  candles.  Then 
afterward  will  go  to  Buelna." 

He  found  the  road  that  led  to  the  Mission 
and  turned  into  it,  pushing  forward  at  a  canter. 
Then  suddenly  at  a  sharp  turning  reined  up 
just  in  time  to  avoid  colliding  with  a  little 
cavalcade. 

He  uttered  an  exclamation  under  his 
breath. 

At  the  head  of  the  cavalcade  rode  old  Martia- 
rena  himself,  and  behind  him  came  a  peon  or 
two,  then  Manuela,  the  aged  housekeeper  and 
—after  a  fashion — duenna.  Then  at  her  side, 
on  a  saddle  of  red  leather  with  silver  bosses, 
which  was  cinched  about  the  body  of  a  very 
small  white  burro,  Buelna  herself. 

She  was  just  turned  sixteen,  and  being  of  the 
best  blood  of  the  mother  kingdom  (the  strain 
dating  back  to  the  Ostrogothic  invasion),  was 
fair.  Her  hair  was  blond,  her  eyes  blue-gray, 
her  eyebrows  and  lashes  dark  brown,  and  as  he 
caught  sight  of  her  Felipe  wondered  how  he 
ever  could  have  believed  the  swarthy  Rubia 
beautiful. 

There  was  a  jubilant  meeting.     Old  Martia- 


The  Riding  of  Felipe  241 

rena  kissed  both  his  cheeks,  patting  him  on  the 
back. 

"Oh,  ho!"  he  cried.  "Once  more  back. 
We  have  just  retumed  from  the  feast  of  the 
Santa  Cruz  at  the  Mission,  and  Buelna  prayed 
for  your  safe  return.  Go  to  her,  boy.  She 
has  waited  long  for  this  hour. " 

Felipe,  his  eyes  upon  those  of  his  betrothed, 
advanced.  She  was  looking  at  him  and  smil 
ing.  As  he  saw  the  unmistakable  light  in  her 
blue  eyes,  the  light  he  knew  she  had  kept  burn 
ing  for  him  alone,  Felipe  could  have  abased 
himself  to  the  very  hoofs  of  her  burro.  Could 
it  be  possible  he  had  ever  forgotten  her  for 
such  a  one  as  Rubia — have  been  unfaithful  to 
this  dear  girl  for  so  much  as  the  smallest  fraction 
of  a  minute? 

"You  are  welcome,  Felipe,"  she  said.  "Oh, 
very,  very  welcome."  She  gave  him  her  hand 
and  turned  her  face  to  his.  But  it  was  her 
hand  and  not  her  face  the  young  man  kissed. 
Old  Martiarena,  who  looked  on,  shook  with 
laughter. 

"  Hoh  !  a  timid  lover  this, "  he  called.  "  We 
managed  different  when  I  was  a  lad.  Her 
lips,  Felipe.  Must  an  old  man  teach  a  youngster 
gallantry?" 

Buelna  blushed  and  laughed,  but  yet  did  not 
withdraw  her  hand  nor  turn  her  face  away. 


242  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

There  was  a  delicate  expectancy  in  her  manner 
that  she  nevertheless  contrived  to  make  com 
patible  with  her  native  modesty.  Felipe  had 
been  her  acknowledged  lover  ever  since  the 
two  were  children. 

"  Well  ? "  cried  Martiarena  as  Felipe  hesitated. 

Even  then,  if  Felipe  could  have  collected 
his  wits,  he  might  have  saved  the  situation  for 
himself.  But  no  time  had  been  allowed  him 
to  think.  Confusion  seized  upon  him.  .All 
that  was  clear  in  his  mind  were  the  last  words 
of  Rubia.  It  seemed  to  him  that  between  his 
lips  he  carried  a  poison  deadly  to  Buelna  above 
all  others.  Stupidly,  brutally  he  precipitated 
the  catastrophe. 

"No, "  he  exclaimed  seriously,  abruptly 
drawing  his  hand  from  Buelna's,  "no.  It 
may  not  be.  I  cannot." 

Martiarena  stared.     Then: 

"Is  this  a  jest,  senor?"  he  demanded.  "An 
ill-timed  one,  then." 

"  No, "  answered  Felipe,  "  it  is  not  a  jest. " 

"But,  Felipe,"  murmured  Buelna.  "But— 
why — I  do  not  understand." 

"I  think  I  begin  to,"  cried  Martiarena. 

"Senor,  you  do  not,"  protested  Felipe.  "It 
is  not  to  be  explained.  I  know  what  you 
believe.  On  my  honour,  I  love  Buelna." 

"Your  actions  give  you  the  lie,  then,  young 


The  Riding  of  Felipe  243 

man.  Bah !  Nonsense.  What  fool's  play  is 
all  this?  Kiss  him,  Buelna,  and  have  done 
with  it." 

Felipe  gnawed  his  nails. 

"Believe  me,  oh,  believe  me,  Senor  Martia- 
rena,  it  must  not  be." 

"Then  an  explanation." 

For  a  moment  Felipe  hesitated.  But  how 
could  he  tell  them  the  truth — the  truth  that 
involved  Rubia  and  his  disloyalty,  temporary 
though  that  was.  They  could  neither  under 
stand  nor  forgive.  Here,  indeed,  was  an 
impasse.  One  thing  only  was  to  be  said,  and 
he  said  it.  "I  can  give  you  no  explanation," 
he  murmured. 

But  Buelna  suddenly  interposed. 

"Oh,  please,"  she  said,  pushing  by  Felipe, 
"uncle,  we  have  talked  too  long.  Please  let 
us  go.  There  is  only  one  explanation.  Is  it 
not  enough  already?" 

"By  God,  it  is  not!"  vociferated  the  old 
man,  turning  upon  Felipe.  "Tell  me  what  it 
means.  Tell  me  what  this  means. " 

"I  cannot." 

"Then  I  will  tell  you!"  shouted  the  old  fellow 
in  Felipe's  face.  "  It  means  that  you  are  a  liar 
and  a  rascal.  That  you  have  played  with 
Buelna,  and  that  you  have  deceived  me,  who 
have  trusted  you  as  a  father  would  have 


244  -4  Deal  in  Wheat 

trusted  a  son.  I  forbid  you  to  answer  me. 
For  the  sake  of  what  you  were  I  spare  you 
now.  But  this  I  will  do.  Off  of  my 
rancho!"  he  cried.  "Off  my  rancho,  and 
in  the  future  pray  your  God,  or  the  devil,  to 
whom  you  are  sold,  to  keep  you  far  from  me. " 

"You  do  not  understand,  you  do  not  under 
stand,"  pleaded  Felipe,  the  tears  starting  to 
his  eyes.  "Oh,  believe  me,  I  speak  the  truth. 
I  love  your  niece.  I  love  Buelna.  Oh,  never 
so  truly,  never  so  devoutly  as  now.  Let  me 
speak  to  her;  she  will  believe  me." 

But  Buelna,  weeping,  had  ridden  on. 


II 

UNZAR 

A  FORTNIGHT  passed.  Soon  a  month  had  gone 
by.  Felipe  gloomed  about  his  rancho,  solitary, 
taciturn,  siding  the  sheep-walks  and  cattle- 
ranges  for  days  and  nights  together,  refusing 
all  intercourse  with  his  friends.  It  seemed  as 
if  he  had  lost  Buelna  for  good  and  all.  At 
"times,  as  the  certainty  of  this  defined  itself 
more  clearly,  Felipe  would  fling  his  hat  upon 
the  ground,  beat  his  breast,  and  then,  prone 
upon  his  face,  his  head  buried  in  his  folded 
arms,  would  lie  for  hours  motionless,  while  his 
pony  nibbled  the  sparse  alfalfa,  and  the  jack- 
rabbits  limping  from  the  sage  peered  at  him, 
their  noses  wrinkling. 

But  about  a  month  after  the  meeting  and 
parting  with  Buelna,  word  went  through  all 
the  ranches  that  a  hide-roger  had  cast  anchor 
in  Monterey  Bay.  At  once  an  abrupt  access 
of  activity  seized  upon  the  rancheros.  Rodeos 
were  held,  sheep  slaughtered,  and  the  great 
tallow-pits  began  to  fill  up. 

Felipe  was  not  behind  his  neighbours,  and, 
-  245 


246  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

his  tallow  once  in  hand,  sent  it  down  to 
Monterey,  and  himself  rode  down  to  see 
about  disposing  of  it. 

On  his  return  he  stopped  at  the  wine  shop 
of  one  Lopez  Catala,  on  the  road  between 
Monterey  and  his  rancho. 

It  was  late  afternoon  when  he  reached  it, 
and  the  wine  shop  was  deserted.  Outside,  the 
California  August  lay  withering  and  suffocating 
over  all  the  land.  The  far  hills  were  burnt  to 
dry,  hay-like  grass  and  brittle  clods.  The 
eucalyptus  trees  in  front  of  the  wine  shop 
(the  first  trees  Felipe  had  seen  all  that  day) 
were  coated  with  dust.  The  plains  of  sage 
brush  and  the  alkali  flats  shimmered  and 
exhaled  pallid  mirages,  glistening  like  inland 
seas.  Over  all  blew  the  trade-wind ;  prolonged, 
insistent,  harassing,  swooping  up  the  red  dust 
of  the  road  and  the  white  powder  of  the  alkali 
beds,  and  flinging  it — white-and-red  banners 
in  a  sky  of  burnt-out  blue — here  and  there 
about  the  landscape. 

The  wine  shop,  which  was  also  an  inn,  was 
isolated,  lonely,  but  it  was  comfortable,  and 
Felipe  decided  to  lay  over  there  that  night, 
then  in  the  morning  reach  his  rancho  by  an 
easy  stage. 

He  had  his  supper — an  omelet,  cheese, 
tortillas,  and  a  glass  of  wine — and  afterward 


The  Riding  of  Felipe  247 

sat  outside  on  a  bench  smoking  innumerable 
cigarettes  and  watching  the  sun  set. 

While  he  sat  so  a  young  man  of  about  his 
own  age  rode  up  from  the  eastward  with  a 
great  flourish,  and  giving  over  his  horse  to 
the  muchacho,  entered  the  wine  shop  and 
ordered  dinner  and  a  room  for  the  night. 
Afterward  he  came  out  and  stood  in  front 
of  the  inn  and  watched  the  muchacho  cleaning 
his  horse. 

Felipe,  looking  at  him,  saw  that  he  was  of 
his  own  age  and  about  his  own  build — that  is  to 
say,  twenty-eight  or  thirty,  and  tall  and  lean. 
But  in  other  respects  the  difference  was  great. 
The  stranger  was  flamboyantly  dressed:  skin 
tight  pantaloons,  fastened  all  up  and  down  the 
leg  with  round  silver  buttons;  yellow  boots 
with  heels  high  as  a  girl's,  set  off  with 
silver  spurs;  a  very  short  coat  faced  with  gal 
loons  of  gold,  and  a  very  broad-brimmed  and 
very  high-crowned  sombrero,  on  which  the 
silver  braid  alone  was  worth  the  price  of  a  good 
horse.  Even  for  a  Spanish  Mexican  his  face 
was  dark.  Swart  it  was,  the  cheeks  hollow; 
a  tiny,  tight  mustache  with  ends  truculently 
pointed  and  erect  helped  out  the  belligerency 
of  the  tight-shut  lips.  The  eyes  were  black  as 
bitumen,  and  flashed  continually  under  heavy 
brows. 


248  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

"Perhaps,"  thought  Felipe,  "he  is  a  toreador 
from  Mexico." 

The  stranger  followed  his  horse  to  the  barn, 
but,  returning  in  a  few  moments,  stood  before 
Felipe  and  said : 

"Senor,  I  have  taken  the  liberty  to  put 
my  horse  in  the  stall  occupied  by  yours.  Your 
beast  the  muchacho  turned  into  the  corrale. 
Mine  is  an  animal  of  spirit,  and  in  a  corrale 
would  fight  with  the  other  horses.  I  rely  upon 
the  sefior's  indulgence." 

At  ordinary  times  he  would  not  have  relied 
in  vain.  But  Felipe's  nerves  were  in  a  jangle 
these  days,  and  his  temper,  since  Buelna's 
dismissal  of  him,  was  bitter.  His  perception 
of  offense  was  keen.  He  rose,  his  eyes  upon 
the  stranger's  eyes. 

"My  horse  is  mine,"  he  observed.  "Only  my 
friends  permit  themselves  liberties  with  what 


is  mine." 


The  other  smiled  scornfully  and  drew  from 
his  belt  a  little  pouch  of  gold  dust. 

"What  I  take  I  pay  for,"  he  remarked,  and, 
still  smiling,  tendered  Felipe  a  few  grains  of 
the  gold. 

Felipe  struck  the  outstretched  palm. 

"Am  I  a  peon  ?"  he  vociferated. 

"Probably,"  retorted  the  other. 

"I  will  take  pay  for  that  word,"  cried  Felipe, 


The  Riding  of  Felipe  249 

his  face  blazing,  "but  not  in  your  money, 
senor." 

''In  that  case  I  may  give  you  more  than  you 
ask." 

"No,  by  God,  for  I  shall  take  all  you  have." 

But  the  other  checked  his  retort.  A  sud 
den  change  came  over  him. 

"I  ask  the  sefior's  pardon,"  he  said,  with 
grave  earnestness,  "for  provoking  him.  You 
may  not  fight  with  me  nor  I  with  you.  I 
speak  the  truth.  I  have  made  oath  not  to 
fight  till  I  have  killed  one  whom  now  I  seek." 

"Very  well;  I,  too,  spoke  without  reflection. 
You  seek  an  enemy,  then,  senor?" 

"My  sister's,  who  is  therefore  mine.  An 
enemy  truly.  Listen,  you  shall  judge.  I  am 
absent  from  my  home  a  year,  and  when  I  return 
what  do  I  find  ?  My  sister  betrayed,  deceived, 
flouted  by  a  fellow,  a  nobody,  whom  she  received 
a  guest  in  her  house,  a  fit  return  for  kindness, 
for  hospitality  !  Well,  he  answers  to  me  for  the 
dishonour." 

"Wait.  Stop!"  interposed  Felipe.  "Your 
name,  senor." 

"Unzar  Ytuerate,  and  my  enemy  is  called 
Arillaga.  Him  I  seek  and— 

"Then  you  shall  seek  no  farther!"  shouted 
Felipe.  "It  is  to  Rubia  Ytuerate,  your  sister, 
whom  I  owe  all  my  unhappiness,  all  my  suffering. 


250  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

She  has  hurt  not  me  only,  but  one — but 

Mother  of  God,  we  waste  words !"  he  cried. 
"Knife  to  knife,  Unzar  Ytuerate.  I  am  Felipe 
Arillaga,  and  may  God  be  thanked  for  the 
chance  that  brings  this  quarrel  to  my  hand." 

"You  !  You  !"  gasped  Unzar.  Fury  choked 
him;  his  hands  clutched  and  unclutched — 
now  fists,  now  claws.  His  teeth  grated  sharply 
while  a  quivering  sensation  as  of  a  chill  crisped 
his  flesh.  "Then  the  sooner  the  better,"  he 
muttered  between  his  set  teeth,  and  the  knives 
flashed  in  the  hands  of  the  two  men  so  suddenly 
that  the  gleam  of  one  seemed  only  the  reflec 
tion  of  the  other, 

Unzar  held  out  his  left  wrist. 

"Are  you  willing?"  he  demanded,  with 
a  significant  glance. 

"And ''ready,"  returned  the  other,  baring  his 
forearm. 

Catala,  keeper  of  the  inn,  was  called. 

"Love  of  the  Virgin,  not  here,  senors.  My 
house — the  alcalde " 

"You  have  a  strap  there."  Unzar  pointed 
to  a  bridle  hanging  from  a  peg  by  the 
doorway.  "No  words;  quick;  do  as  you 
are  told." 

The  two  men  held  out  their  left  arms  till 
wrist  touched  wrist,  and  Catala,  trembling  and 
protesting,  lashed  them  together  with  a  strap. 


The  Riding  of  Felipe  251 

"Tighter,"  commanded  Felipe;  "put  all  your 
strength  to  it." 

The  strap  was  drawn  up  to  another  hole. 

"Now,  Catala,  stand  back,"  commanded 
Unzar,  "and  count  three  slowly.  At  the  word 
'three,'  Senor  Arillaga,  we  begin.  You  under 
stand." 

"I  understand." 

"Ready.     .     .     .     Count." 

"One." 

Felipe  and  Unzar  each  put  his  right  hand 
grasping  the  knife  behind  his  back  as  etiquette 
demanded. 

"Two." 

They  strained  back  from  each  other,  the  full 
length  of  their  left  arms,  till  the  nails  grew 
bloodless. 

"Three!"  called  Lopez  Catala  in  a  shaking 
voice. 


Ill 

RUBIA 

WHEN  Felipe  regained  consciousness  he  found 
that  he  lay  in  an  upper  chamber  of  Catala's 
inn  upon  a  bed.  His  shoulder,  the  right  one, 
was  bandaged,  and  so  was  his  head.  He  felt 
no  pain,  only  a  little  weak,  but  there  was  a 
comfortable  sense  of  brandy  at  his  lips,  an  arm 
supported  his  head,  and  the  voice  of  Rubia 
Ytuerate  spoke  his  name.  He  sat  up  on  a 
sudden. 

"Rubia,  youT  he  cried.  "What  is  it? 
What  happened?  Oh,  I  remember,  Unzar— 
we  fought.  Oh,  my  God,  how  we  fought ! 
But  you—  What  brought  you  here  ?" 

"Thank  Heaven,"  she  murmured,  "you  are 
better.  You  are  not  so  badly  wounded.  As 
he  fell  he  must  have  dragged  you  with  him,  and 
your  head  struck  the  threshold  of  the  door 
way/' 

"  Is  he  badly  hurt  ?     Will  he  recover  ?' ' 

"I  hope  so.     But  you  are  safe." 

"But  what  brought  you  here?" 

"Love,"  she  cried ;  "my  love  for  you.     What 

253 


254  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

I  suffered  after  you  had  gone !  Felipe,  I  have 
fought,  too.  Pride  was  strong  at  first,  and  it 
was  pride  that  made  me  send  Unzar  after  you. 
I  told  him  what  had  happened.  I  hounded 
him  to  hunt  you  down.  Then  when  he  had 
gone  my  battle  began.  Ah,  dearest,  dearest, 
it  all  came  back,  our  days  together,  the  life 
we  led,  knowing  no  other  word  but  love,  think 
ing  no  thoughts  that  were  not  of  each  other. 
And  love  conquered.  Unzar  was  not  a  week 
gone  before  I  followed  him — to  call  him  back, 
to  shield  you,  to  save  you  from  his  fury.  I 
came  all  but  too  late,  and  found  you  both  half 
dead.  My  brother  and  my  lover,  your  body 
across  his,  your  blood  mingling  with  his  own. 
But  not  too  late  to  love  you  back  to  life  again. 
Your  life  is  mine  now,  Felipe.  I  love  you, 
I  love  you."  She  clasped  her  hands  together 
and  pressed  them  to  her  cheek.  "Ah,  if  you 
knew,"  she  cried;  "if  you  could  only  look  into 
my  heart.  Pride  is  nothing;  good  name  is 
nothing;  friends  are  nothing.  Oh,  it  is  a 
glory  to  give  them  all  for  love,  to  give  up 
everything;  to  surrender,  to  submit,  to  cry  to 
one's  heart :  Take  me ;  I  am  as  wax.  Take  me ; 
conquer  me;  lead  me  wherever  you  will.  All 
is  well  lost  so  only  that  love  remains.'  And 
I  have  heard  all  that  has  happened — this  other 
one,  the  Sefiorita  Buelna,  how  that  she  for- 


The  Riding  of  Felipe  255 

bade  you  her  lands.     Let  her  go;  she  is  not 
worthy  of  your  love,  cold,  selfish " 

"Stop1!"  cried  Felipe,  "you  shall  say  no 
more  evil  of  her.  It  is  enough." 

"Felipe,  you  love  her  yet?" 

"And  always,  always  will." 

"She  who  has  cast  you  off ;  she  who  disdains 
you,  who  will  not  suffer  you  on  her  lands? 
And  have  you  come  to  be  so  low,  so  base  and 
mean  as  that?" 

"I  have  sunk  no  lower  than  a  woman  who 
could  follow  after  a  lover  who  had  grown 
manifestly  cold." 

"Ah,"  she  answered  sadly,  "if  I  could  so 
forget  my  pride  as  to  follow  you,  do  not  think 
your  reproaches  can  touch  me  now."  Then 
suddenly  she  sank  at  the  bedside  and  clasped 
his  hand  in  both  of  hers.  Her  beautiful  hair, 
unbound,  tumbled  about  her  shoulders;  her 
eyes,  swimming  with  tears,  were  turned  up  to 
his ;  her  lips  trembled  with  the  intensity  of  her 
passion.  In  a  voice  low,  husky,  sweet  as  a 
dove's,  she  addressed  him.  "Oh,  dearest,  come 
back  to  me;  come  back  to  me.  Let  me  love 
you  again.  Don't  you  see  my  heart  is  break 
ing?  There  is  only  you  in  all  the  world  for 
me.  I  was  a  proud  woman  once.  See  now 
what  I  have  brought  myself  to.  Don't  let  it 
all  be  in  vain.  If  you  fail  me  now,  think  how 


256  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

it  will  be  for  me  afterward — to  know  that  I — 
I,  Rubia  Ytuerate,  have  begged  the  love  of  a 
man  and  begged  in  vain.  Do  you  think  I 
could  live  knowing  that?"  Abruptly  she  lost 
control  of  herself.  She  caught  him  about  the 
neck  with  both  her  arms.  Almost  incoherently 
her  words  rushed  from  her  tight-shut  teeth. 

"Ah,  I  can  make  you  love  me.  I  can  make 
you  love  me,"  she  cried.  "You  shall  come  back 
to  me.  You  are  mine,  and  you  cannot  help 
but  come  back." 

"Por  Dios,  Rubia,"  he  ejaculated,  "remem 
ber  yourself.  You  are  out  of  your  head." 

"Come  back  to  me;  love  me." 

"No,  no." 

"Come  back  to  me." 

"No." 

"You  cannot  push  me  from  you,"  she  cried, 
for,  one  hand  upon  her  shoulder,  he  had  sought 
to  disengage  himself.  "No,  I  shall  not  let 
you  go.  You  shall  not  push  me  from  you ! 
Thrust  me  off  and  I  will  embrace  you  all  the 
closer.  Yes,  strike  me  if  you  will,  and  I  will 
kiss  you." 

And  with  the  words  she  suddenly  pressed 
her  lips  to  his. 

Abruptly  Felipe  freed  himself.  A  new 
thought  suddenly  leaped  to  his  brain. 

"Let   your   own   curse   return   upon   you," 


The  Riding  of  Felipe  257 

he  cried.  "You  yourself  have  freed  me;  you 
yourself  have  broken  the  barrier  you  Braised 
between  me  and  my  betrothed.  You  cursed 
her  whose  lips  should  next  touch  mine,  and 
you  are  poisoned  with  your  own  venom." 

He  sprang  from  off  the  bed,  and  catching  up 
his  scrape,  flung  it  about  his  shoulders. 

"Felipe,"  she  cried,  "Felipe,  where  are  you 
going?" 

"Back  to  Buelna,"  he  shouted,  and  with  the 
words  rushed  from  the  room.  Her  strength 
seemed  suddenly  to  leave  her.  She  sank  lower 
to  the  floor,  burying  her  face  deep  upon  the 
pillows  that  yet  retained  the  impress  of  him 
she  loved  so  deeply,  so  recklessly. 

Footsteps  in  the  passage  and  a  knocking  at 
the  door  aroused  her.  A  woman,  one  of  the 
escort  who  had  accompanied  her,  entered 
hurriedly. 

"Senorita,"  cried  this  one,  "your  brother, 
the  Senor  Unzar,  he  is  dying." 

Rubia  hurried  to  an  adjoining  room,  where 
upon  a  mattress  on  the  floor  lay  her  brother. 

"Put  that  woman  out,"  he  gasped  as  his 
glance  met  hers.  "I  never  sent  for  her,"  he 
went  on.  "You  are  no  longer  sister  of  mine. 
It  was  you  who  drove  me  to  this  quarrel,  and 
when  I  have  vindicated  you  what  do  you  do? 
Your  brother  you  leave  to  be  tended  by  hire- 


258  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

lings,  while  all  your  thought  and  care  are  lav 
ished  on  your  paramour.  Go  back  to  him.  I 
know  how  to  die  alone,  but  as  you  go  remember 
that  in  dying  I  hated  and  disowned  you." 

He  fell  back  upon  the  pillows,  livid,  dead. 

Rubia  started  forward  with  a  cry. 

"It  is  you  who  have  killed  him,"  cried  the 
woman  who  had  summoned  her.  The  rest  of 
Rubia's  escort,  vaqueros,  peons,  and  the  old 
alcalde  of  her  native  village,  stood  about  with 
bared  heads. 

"That  is  true.  That  is  true,"  they  mur 
mured.  The  old  alcalde  stepped  forward. 

"Who  dishonours  my  friend  dishonours  me," 
he  said.  "From  this  day,  Senorita  Ytuerate, 
you  and  I  are  strangers."  He  went  out,  and 
one  by  one,  with  sullen  looks  and  hostile 
demeanour,  Rubia's  escort  followed.  Their 
manner  was  unmistakable ;  they  were  deserting 
her. 

Rubia  clasped  her  hands  over  her  eyes. 

"Madre  de  Dws,  Madre  de  Dios,"  she  moaned 
over  and  over  again.  Then  in  a  low  voice  she 
repeated  her  own  words:  "May  it  be  a 
blight  to  her.  From  that  moment  may  evil 
cling  to  her,  bad  luck  follow  her;  may  she 
love  and  not  be  loved ;  may  friends  desert  her, 
her  sisters  shame  her,  her  brothers  disown 
her " 


The  Riding  of  Felipe  259 

There  was  a  clatter  of  horse's  hoofs  in  the 
courtyard. 

"It  is  your  lover,"  said  her  woman  coldly 
from  the  doorway.  "He  is  riding  away  from 
you." 

" and  those,"  added  Rubia,  "whom  she 

has  loved  abandon  her." 


IV 

BEULNA 

MEANWHILE  Felipe,  hatless,  bloody,  was  gal 
loping  through  the  night,  his  pony's  head 
turned  toward  the  hacienda  of  Martiarena. 
The  Rancho  Martiarena  lay  between  his  own 
rancho  and  the  inn  where  he  had  met  Rubia, 
so  that  this  distance  was  not  great.  He 
reached  it  in  about  an  hour  of  vigorous 
spurring. 

The  place  was  dark  though  it  was  as  yet 
early  in  the  night,  and  an  ominous  gloom 
seemed  to  hang  about  the  house.  Felipe,  his 
heart  sinking,  pounded  at  the  door,  and  at 
last  aroused  the  aged  superintendent,  who  was 
also  a  sort  of  major-domo  in  the  household,  and 
who  in  Felipe's  boyhood  had  often  ridden  him 
on  his  knee. 

"Ah,  it  is  you,  Arillaga,"  he  said  very  sadly, 
as  the  moonlight  struck  across  Felipe's  face. 
"I  had  hoped  never  to  see  you  again." 

"Buelna,"  demanded  Felipe.  "I  have  some 
thing  to  say  to  her,  and  to  the  padron." 

"Too  late,  senor." 

261 


262  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

"My  God,  dead?" 

"As  good  as  dead." 

"Rafael,  tell  me  all.  I  have  come  to  set 
everything  straight  again.  On  my  honour, 
I  have  been  misjudged.  Is  Buelna  well?" 
•  "Listen.  You  know  your  own  heart  best, 
senor.  When  you  left  her  our  little  lady  was 
as  one  half  dead;  her  heart  died  within  her. 
Ah,  she  loved  you,  Arillaga,  far  more  than  you 
deserved.  She  drooped  swiftly,  and  one  night 
all  but  passed  away.  Then  it  was  that  she 
made  a  vow  that  if  God  spared  her  life  she 
would  become  the  bride  of  the  church — would 
forever  renounce  the  world.  Well,  she  recov 
ered,  became  almost  well  ^again,  but  not  the 
same  as  before.  She  never  will  be  that.  So 
soon  as  she  was  able  to  obtain  Martiarena's 
consent  she  made  all  the  preparations — signed 
away  all  her  lands  and  possessions,  and  spent 
the  days  and  nights  in  prayer'and  purifications. 
The  Mother  Superior  of  the  Convent  of  Santa 
Teresa  has  been  a  guest  at  the  hacienda  this 
fortnight  past/-  Only  to-day  the  party — that 
is  to  say,  Martiarena,  the  Mother  Superior  and 
Buelna — left  for  Santa  Teresa,  and  at  mid 
night  of  this  very  night  Buelna  takes  the  veil. 
You  know  your  own  heart,  Senor  Felipe.  Go 


your  way. 

"But  not  till  midnight !"  cried  Felipe. 


Riding  of  Felipe  263 


"What?     I  do  not  understand." 

"She  will  not  take  the  veil  till  midnight." 

"No,  not  till  then." 

"Rafael,"  cried  Felipe,  "ask  me  no  questions 
now.  Only  believe  me.  I  always  have  and 
always  will  love  Buelna.  I  swear  it.  I  can 
stop  this  yet;  only  once  let  me  reach  her  in 
time.  Trust  me.  Ah,  for  this  once  trust 
me,  you  who  have  known  me  since  I  was  a 
lad." 

He  held  out  his  hand.  The  other  for  a 
moment  hesitated,  then  impulsively  clasped  it 
in  his  own. 

"Bueno,  I  trust  you  then.  Yet  I  warn  you 
not  to  fool  me  twice." 

"Good,"  returned  Felipe.  "And  now  adios. 
Unless  I  bring  her  back  with  me  you'll  never 
see  me  again." 

"But,  Felipe,  lad,  where  away  now?" 

"To  Santa  Teresa." 

"You  are  mad.  Do  you  fancy  you  can  reach 
it  before  midnight?"  insisted  the  major-domo. 

"I  will,  Rafael;  I  will" 

"Then  Heaven  be  with  you." 

But  the  old  fellow's  words  were  lost  in  a 
wild  clatter  of  hoofs,  as  Felipe  swung  his  pony 
around  and  drove  home  the  spurs.  Through 
the  night  came  back  a  cry  already  faint : 

"Adios,  adios." 


264  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

"Adios,  Felipe,"  murmured  the  old  man 
as  he  stood  bewildered  in  the  doorway,  "and 
your  good  angel  speed  you  now." 

When  Felipe  began  his  ride  it  was  already 
a  little  after  nine.  Could  he  reach  Santa 
Teresa  before  midnight  ?  The  question  loomed 
grim  before  him,  but  he  answered  only  with 
the  spur.  P£pe  was  hardy,  and,  as  Felipe 
well  knew,  of  indomitable  pluck.  But  what  a 
task  now  lay  before  the  little  animal.  He 
might  do  it,  but  oh  !  it  was  a  chance  ! 

In  a  quarter  of  a  mile  Pepe  had  settled  to 
his  stride,  the  dogged,  even  gallop  that  Felipe 
knew  so  well,  and  at  half -past  ten  swung  through 
the  main  street  of  Piedras  Blancas — silent, 
somnolent,  dark. 

"Steady,  little  P6pe,"  said  Felipe;  "steady, 
little  one.  Soh,  soh.  There." 

The  little  horse  flung  back  an  ear,  and  Felipe 
could  feel  along  the  lines  how  he  felt  for  the 
bit,  trying  to  get  a  grip  of  it  to  ease  the  strain 
on  his  mouth. 

The  De  Profundis  bell  was  sounding  from 
the  church  tower  as  Felipe  galloped  through 
San  Anselmo,  the  next  village,  but  by  the 
time  he  raised  the  lights  of  Arcata  it  was  black 
night  in  very  earnest.  He  set  his  teeth.  Terra 
Bella  lay  eight  miles  farther  ahead,  and  here 
from  the  town-hall  clock  that  looked  down 


The  Riding  of  Felipe  265 

upon  the  plaza  he  would  be  able  to  know  the 
time. 

"Hoopa,  P<fpe;  pronto/"  he  shouted. 

The  pony  responded  gallantly.  His  head 
was  low;  his  ears  in  constant  movement, 
twitched  restlessly  -back  and  forth,  now  laid 
flat  on  his  neck,  now  cocked  to  catch  the  rustle 
of  the  wind  in  the  chaparral,  the  scurrying  of  a 
rabbit  or  ground-owl  through  the  sage. 

It  grew  darker,  colder,  the  trade-wind  lapsed 
away.  Low  in  the  sky  upon  the  right  a  pale, 
dim  belt  foretold  the  rising  of  the  moon.  The 
incessant  galloping  of  the  pony  was  the  only 
sound. 

The  convent  toward  which  he  rode  was  just 
outside  the  few  scattered  huts  in  the  valley  of 
the  Rio  Esparto  that  by  charity  had  been 
invested  with  the  name  of  Caliente.  From 
Piedras  Blancas  to  Caliente  between  twilight 
and  midnight!  What  a  riding!  Could  he 
do  it  ?  Would  P6pe  last  under  him  ? 

"Steady,  little  one.     Steady,  Pepe." 

Thus  he  spoke  again  and  again,  measuring 
the  miles  in  his  mind,  husbanding  the  little 
fellow's  strength. 

Lights!  Cart  lanterns?  No,  Terra  Bella. 
A  great  dog  charged  out  at  him  from  a  dobe, 
filling  the  night  with  outcry ;  a  hayrick  loomed 
by  like  a  ship  careening  through  fog ;  there  was 


266  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

a  smell  of  chickens  and  farmyards.  Then 
a  paved  street,  an  open  square,  a  solitary 
pedestrian  dodging  just  in  time  from  under 
Pepe's  hools.  All  flashed  by.  The  open  coun 
try  again,  unbroken  darkness  again,  and  soli 
tude  of  the  fields  again.  Terra  Bella  past. 

But  through  the  confusion  Felipe  retained 
one  picture,  that  of  the  moon-faced  clock 
with  hands  marking  the  hour  of  ten.  On 
again  with  Pepe  leaping  from  the  touch  of  the 
spur.  On  again  up  the  long,  shallow  slope 
that  rose  for  miles  to  form  the  divide  that  over 
looked  the  valley  of  the  Esparto. 

"Hold,  there  !  Madman  to  ride  thus.  Mad 
or  drunk.  Only  desperadoes  gallop  at  night. 
Halt  and  speak !" 

The  pony  had  swerved  barely  in  time,  and 
behind  him  the  Monterey  stage  lay  all  but 
ditched  on  the  roadside,  the  driver  fulminating 
oaths.  But  Felipe  gave  him  but  an  instant's 
thought.  Dobe  huts  once  more  abruptly  ranged 
up  on  either  side  the  roadway,  staggering  and 
dim  under  the  night.  Then  a  wine  shop  noisy 
with  carousing  peons  darted  by.  Pavements 
again.  A  shop-front  or  two.  A  pig  snoring 
in  the  gutter,  a  dog  howling  in  a  yard,  a  cat 
lamenting  on  a  rooftop.  Then  the  smell  of 
fields  again.  Then  darkness  again.  Then  the 
solitude  of  the  open  country.  Cadenassa  past. 


The  Riding  of  Felipe  267 

But  now  the  country  changed.  The  slope 
grew  steeper ;  it  was  the  last  lift  of  land  to  the 
divide.  The  road  was  sown  with  stones  and 
scored  with  ruts.  Pepe  began  to  blow;  once 
he  groaned.  Perforce  his  speed  diminished. 
The  villages  were  no  longer  so  thickly  spread 
now.  The  crest  of  the  divide  was  wild,  deso 
late,  forsaken.  Felipe  again  and  again  searched 
the  darkness  for  lights,  but  the  night  was  black. 

Then  abruptly  the  moon  rose.  By  that 
Felipe  could  guess  the  time.  His  heart  sank. 
He  halted,  recinched  the  saddle,  washed  the 
pony's  mouth  with  brandy  from  his  flask,  then 
mounted  and  spurred  on. 

Another  half-hour  went  by.  He  could  see 
that  Pepe  was  in  distress;  his  speed  was  by 
degrees  slacking.  Would  he  last !  Would  he 
last?  Would  the  minutes  that  raced  at  his 
side  win  in  that  hard  race? 

Houses  again.  Plastered  fronts.  All  dark 
and  gray.  No  soul  stirring.  Sightless  win 
dows  stared  out  upon  emptiness.  The  plaza 
bared  its  desolation  to  the  pitiless  moonlight. 
Only  from  an  unseen  window  a  guitar  hummed 
and  tinkled.  All  vanished.  Open  country 
again.  The  solitude  of  the  fields  again;  the 
moonlight  sleeping  on  the  vast  sweep  of  the 
ranches.  Calpella  past. 

Felipe  rose  in  his  stirrups  with  a  great  shout. 


268  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

At  Calpella  he  knew  he  had  crossed  the  divide. 
The  valley  lay  beneath  him,  and  the  moon  was 
turning  to  silver  the  winding  courses  of  the 
Rio  Esparto,  now  in  plain  sight. 

It  was  between  Calpella  and  Proberta  that 
Pepe  stumbled  first.  Felipe  pulled  him  up  and 
ceased  to  urge  him  to  his  topmost  speed.  But 
five  hundred  yards  farther  he  stumbled  again. 
The  spume-flakes  he  tossed  from  the  bit  were 
bloody.  His  breath  came  in  labouring  gasps. 

But  by  now  Felipe  could  feel  the  rising 
valley-mists;  he  could  hear  the  piping  of  the 
frogs  in  the  marshes.  The  ground  for  miles  had 
sloped  downward.  He  was  not  far  from  the 
river,  not  far  from  Caliente,  not  far  from  the 
Convent  of  Santa  Teresa  and  Buelna. 

But  the  way  to  Caliente  was  roundabout, 
distant.  If  he  should  follow  the  road  thither 
he  would  lose  a  long  half -hour.  'By  going 
directly  across  the  country  from  where  he  now 
was,  avoiding  Proberta,  he  could  save  much 
distance  and  precious  time.  But  in  this  case 
Pepe,  exhausted,  stumbling,  weak,"  would  have 
to  swim  the  river.  If  he  failed  to  do  this 
Felipe  would  probably  drown.  If  he  suc 
ceeded,  Caliente  and  the  convent  would  be 
close  at  hand. 

For  a  moment  Felipe  hesitated,  then  sud 
denly  made  up  his  mind.  He  wheeled  Pepe 


The  Riding  of  Felipe  269 

from  the  road,  and  calling  upon  his  last  remain 
ing  strength,  struck  off  across  the  country. 

The  sound  of  the  river  at  last  came  to  his  ears. 

"Now,  then,  Pepe,"  he  cried. 

For  the  last  time  the  little  horse  leaped  to  the 
sound  of  his  voice.  Still  at  a  gallop,  Felipe  cut 
the  cinches  of  the  heavy  saddle,  shook  his  feet 
clear  of  the  stirrups,  and  let  it  fall  to  the  ground ; 
his  coat,  belt  and  boots  followed.  Bareback, 
with  but  the  headstall  and  bridle  left  upon  the 
pony,  he  rode  at  the  river. 

Before  he  was  ready  for  it  Pepe's  hoofs 
splashed  on  the  banks.  Then  the  water  swirled 
about  his  fetlocks;  then  it  wet  Felipe's  bare 
ankles.  In  another  moment  Felipe  could  tell  by 
the  pony's  motion  that  his  feet  had  left  the 
ground  and  that  he  was  swimming  in  the 
middle  of  the  current. 

He  was  carried  down  the  stream  more  than 
one  hundred  yards.  Once  Pepe's  leg  became 
entangled  in  a  sunken  root.  Freed  from  that, 
his  hoofs  caught  in  grasses  and  thick  weeds. 
Felipe's  knee  was  cut  against  a  rock;  but  at 
length  the  pony  touched  ground.  He  rose  out 
of  the  river  trembling,  gasping  and  dripping. 
Felipe  put  him  at  the  steep  bank.  He  took  it 
bravely,  scrambled  his  way — almost  on  his 
knees — to  the  top,  then  stumbled  badly  and 
fell  prone  upon  the  ground. 


270  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

Felipe  twisted  from  tinder  him  as  he  fell  and 
regained  his  feet  unhurt.  He  ran  to  the  brave 
little  fellow's  head. 

"Up,  up,  my  Pepe.     Soh,  soh." 

Suddenly  he  paused,  listening.  Across  the 
level  fields  there  came  to  his  ears  the  sound 
of  the  bell  of  the  convent  of  Santa  Teresa  tolling 
for  midnight. 

Upon  the  first  stroke  of  midnight  the  pro 
cession  of  nuns  entered  the  nave  of  the  church. 
There  were  some  thirty  in  the  procession. 
The  first  ranks  swung  censers ;  those  in  the  rear 
carried  lighted  candles.  The  Mother  Superior 
and  Buelna,  the  latter  wearing  a  white  veil, 
walked  together.  The  youngest  nun  followed 
these  two,  carrying  upon  her  outspread  palms 
the  black  veil. 

Arrived  before  the  altar  the  procession 
divided  into  halves,  fifteen  upon  the  east  side 
of  the  chancel,  fifteen  upon  the  west.  The 
organ  began  to  drone  and  murmur,  the  censers 
swung  and  smoked,  the  candle-flames  flared 
and  attracted  the  bats  that  lived  among  the 
rafters  overhead.  Buelna  knelt  before  the 
Mother  Superior.  She  was  pale  and  a  little 
thin  from  fasting  and  the  seclusion  of  the  cells. 
But,  try  as  she  would,  she  could  not  keep  her 
thoughts  upon  the  solemn  office  in  which 


The  Riding  of  Felipe  271 

she  was  so  important  a  figure.  Other  days 
came  back  to  her.  A  little  girl  gay  and  free 
once  more,  she  romped  through  the  hallways 
and  kitchen  of  the  old  hacienda  Martiarena 
with  her  playmate,  the  .young  Felipe ;  a  young 
schoolgirl,  she  rode  with  him  to  the  Mission 
to  the  instruction  of  the  padre;  a  young  woman, 
she  danced  with  him  at  the  fete  of  All  Saints  at 
Monterey.  Why  had  it  not  been  possible  that 
her  romance  should  run  its  appointed  course  to 
a  happy  end  ?  That  last  time  she  had  seen  him 
how  strangely  he  had  deported  himself.  Untrue 
to  her !  Felipe  !  Her  Felipe ;  her  more  than 
brother !  How  vividly  she  recalled  the  day. 
They  were  returning  from  the  Mission,  where 
she  had  prayed  for  his  safe  and  speedy  return. 
Long  before  she  had  seen  him  she  heard  the 
gallop  of  a  horse's  hoofs  around  the  turn  of  the 
road.  Yes,  she  remembered  that — the  gallop 
of  a  horse.  Ah !  how  he  rode — how  vivid  it 
was  in  her  fancy.  Almost  she  heard  the 
rhythmic  beat  of  the  hoofs.  They  came  nearer, 
nearer.  Fast,  furiously  fast  hoof-beats.  How 
swift  he  rode.  Gallop,  gallop — nearer,  on  they 
came.  They  were  close  by.  They  swept 
swiftly  nearer,  nearer.  What — what  was  this  ? 
No  fancy.  Nearer,  nearer.  No  fancy  this. 
Nearer,  nearer.  These — ah,  Mother  of  God 
— are  real  hoof -beats.  They  are  coming; 


272  A  Deal  in  Wheat 

they  are  at  hand ;  they  are  at  the  door  of  the 
church ;  they  are  here! 

She  sprang  up,  facing  around.  The  cere 
mony  was  interrupted.  The  frightened  nuns 
were  gathering  about  the  Mother  Superior. 
The  organ  ceased,  and  in  the  stillness  that 
followed  all  could  hear  that  furious  gallop. 
On  it  came,  up  the  hill,  into  the  courtyard. 
Then  a  shout,  hurried  footsteps,  the  door 
swung  in,  and  Felipe  Arillaga,  ragged,  dripping, 
half  fainting,  hatless  and  stained  with  mud, 
sprang  toward  Buelna.  Forgetting  all  else,  she 
ran  to  meet  him,  and,  clasped  in  each  other's 
arms,  they  kissed  one  another  upon  the  lips 
again  and  again. 

The  bells  of  Santa  Teresa  that  Felipe  had 
heard  that  night  on  the  blanks  of  the  Esparto 
rang  for  a  wedding  the  next  day. 

Two  days  after  they  tolled  as  passing  bells. 
A  beautiful  woman  had  been  found  drowned 
in  a  river  not  far  from  the  house  of  Lopez 
Catala,  on  the  high  road  to  Monterey. 

THE    END 

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